When I started building Termique, I knew one thing for sure: it had to feel fast.
An SSH manager is a tool you open constantly. You switch between servers, you check logs, you run commands. The last thing you want is to wait for your app to load. So when I started evaluating my options for building a cross-platform desktop app, Electron was the obvious first choice, but it didn't take long for me to realize it wasn't the right one.
The Electron problem
Electron is everywhere. VS Code, Slack, Discord, all built on Electron. And for good reason: it's mature, well-documented, and lets you build desktop apps with web technologies.
But the tradeoff is real. Electron ships with its own copy of Chromium and Node.js. Every Electron app is essentially a browser running your app inside it. The result? My early build was hitting around 100MB just for the installer. For an SSH manager, that felt absurd.
And it wasn't just the bundle size. The app felt heavy. Not broken, not unusable, just heavy. That sluggish feeling every time you open it, that half-second delay before things respond. For a tool you open dozens of times a day, that adds up fast.
Discovering Tauri
Tauri takes a different approach entirely. Instead of bundling its own browser engine, it uses the OS's native webview, WebKit on macOS, WebView2 on Windows, WebKitGTK on Linux. The result is dramatically smaller bundle sizes and native performance.
When I switched Termique to Tauri, the Windows installer went from ~100MB down to 12MB. That's not a small improvement, that's a completely different category of app.
But what surprised me more was the performance difference. Tauri just feels fast in a way that's hard to explain. Snappier startup, smoother interactions. I'm not sure exactly what's happening under the hood, but the difference is noticeable immediately.
It wasn't all smooth sailing
I'll be honest, Tauri has its quirks. The one that frustrated me the most early on was something embarrassingly simple: the close button didn't work.
When I first got the app running, clicking the X to close the window did absolutely nothing. I had to force quit every single time. It took me a while to figure out the fix, but that kind of thing is part of working with a newer framework, the documentation isn't always as comprehensive as Electron's, and some things you just have to figure out yourself.
Was it worth it?
Yes, without question.
For Termique specifically, the lightweight nature of Tauri isn't just a nice-to-have, it's part of the product's identity. An SSH manager should feel like a native tool, not a browser tab pretending to be one. 12MB installer, fast startup, no bloat. That's exactly what I wanted.
If you're building a developer tool where performance and trust matter, I'd seriously consider Tauri. It's not as plug-and-play as Electron yet, but the tradeoffs are absolutely worth it.
Termique is available at termique.app, free to try, and built entirely with Tauri.
Top comments (0)