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sindresorhus/awesome-electron

Analysis updated 2026-06-21

27,133Audience · developerComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

TLDR

A curated list of tools, starter templates, components, articles, and example open-source apps for building desktop applications with Electron using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((awesome-electron))
    What it is
      Curated link list
      Electron resources
      No code included
    Categories
      Example apps
      Boilerplates
      Build and packaging
      Components
    Notable apps
      VS Code
      Hyper terminal
      WebTorrent
    Audience
      Desktop developers
      Web devs going desktop
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Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Find a starter boilerplate to begin a new Electron desktop app without configuring everything from scratch.

USE CASE 2

Browse real open-source Electron apps like VS Code or Hyper to understand how production apps are structured.

USE CASE 3

Discover packaging tools that create installable binaries for Windows, Mac, and Linux from your Electron project.

USE CASE 4

Find reusable components that handle common desktop patterns like system tray icons, auto-update, or native menus.

How does it compare?

sindresorhus/awesome-electronstability-ai/generative-modelsajaxorg/ace
Stars27,13327,13627,129
LanguagePythonJavaScript
Setup difficultyeasyhardeasy
Complexity1/54/52/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

In plain English

Awesome Electron is a curated list of useful resources for building desktop apps with Electron. Electron, as the README explains, is an open-source framework for creating desktop applications using web technologies, it combines the Chromium rendering engine, which is what powers a web browser, with the Node.js runtime, which lets the same code also reach into the operating system. The practical effect is that a developer can write a desktop app in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and ship it as an installable program. The repository itself does not contain Electron or any application. It is a single readme organizing pointers into categories: example apps made with Electron (both open source and proprietary), starter boilerplates, build and packaging tools, reusable components, official documentation, articles, books, videos, podcasts, and community spaces. Each entry is a short description plus a link. The featured open-source apps include Visual Studio Code, the Hyper terminal, the Min browser, and the WebTorrent streaming client, which gives a sense of the kind of software Electron is used to build. Someone would consult this list when they want to learn how Electron is used in practice, to pick a starter template before beginning a new project, to find a tool that solves a common problem like packaging, or to look for prior art instead of writing everything from scratch. The description notes that submissions are temporarily paused because the maintainer is tired of reviewing low-quality contributions. Because it is a list of links rather than a program, there is no language or framework involved beyond markdown.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I'm starting my first Electron app. Which boilerplate from the awesome-electron list should I use, and show me how to scaffold it.
Prompt 2
What packaging tool from the awesome-electron ecosystem should I use to distribute my app on Windows, Mac, and Linux as installers?
Prompt 3
Show me how to structure a basic Electron app with a main process and a renderer process, based on patterns from popular Electron boilerplates.
Prompt 4
I want to add auto-update to my Electron app so users get new versions automatically. What tool handles this and how do I set it up?
Prompt 5
Walk me through adding a system tray icon to my Electron app that shows a context menu with common actions.

Frequently asked questions

What is awesome-electron?

A curated list of tools, starter templates, components, articles, and example open-source apps for building desktop applications with Electron using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

How hard is awesome-electron to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is awesome-electron for?

Mainly developer.

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