I rebuilt VS Code on Tauri instead of Electron and just open-sourced it

#vscode #cli #programming #ai

VS Code is an incredible editor. But every install ships a full copy of Chromium and Node.js. 775MB installed. On a machine running multiple dev tools, that adds up fast.

I wanted to know what happens if you rip all of that out and rebuild it on Tauri. So I did.

The result is SideX. 31MB installed. Same VS Code codebase. Different runtime.

What this actually is

This isn't a "VS Code inspired" toy editor. This is the actual VS Code source tree:

5,687 TypeScript files
335 CSS files
82 bundled language extensions

All running on Tauri v2 with a Rust backend instead of Electron. Zero Electron imports remaining in the codebase.

Tauri uses your OS's native webview (WebKit on macOS, WebView2 on Windows) instead of shipping its own Chromium. That one architectural change is responsible for most of the size difference.

What the Rust backend does

The Tauri side isn't a thin wrapper. It's 49 commands across 9 modules:

Terminal - real PTY via portable-pty (replaces node-pty)
Git - 17 commands: status, diff, log, branch, stash, push/pull, clone
File system - read, write, stat, watch (via notify crate)
Storage - SQLite via rusqlite (replaces @vscode/sqlite3)
Search - recursive text and file search with smart filtering
Extension host - Node.js sidecar so VS Code extensions still work
HTTP proxy - CORS bypass for the Open VSX extension marketplace

Extensions load from Open VSX instead of Microsoft's proprietary gallery, so the whole stack is open.

The numbers

	SideX (Tauri)	VS Code (Electron)
Installed size	31.2 MB	775.1 MB
Bundled browser engine	None (OS webview)	Full Chromium
Bundled JS runtime	None (Rust backend)	Full Node.js
Backend language	Rust	JavaScript/C++

Why this matters for AI editors

Every AI coding tool right now, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Cline, is built on top of VS Code's Electron stack. That means every one of them ships a full Chromium. A Tauri-based foundation is a fraction of the size with a Rust backend that's actually fast. Whether or not SideX itself becomes the thing people use, proving this architecture works matters.

Current state

I'll be honest. This is an early release. The core editor, terminal, file explorer, git, themes, and extensions all work. But a lot of stuff is still rough or incomplete.

What works: