You can make more precise decisions when you have complete control over the environment. When you don't, you have to make trade-offs. In this case, universality (electron and javascript) for higher RAM usage. It doesn't seem to have slowed Discord's adoption rate.
Even if they built their desktops apps in native code and UI, they'd have to build a JS website in parallel.
This has nothing to do wih the fact that Discord is a bloated, slow monstrosity.
> Even if they built their desktops apps in native code and UI, they'd have to build a JS website in parallel.
Oh no. The impossibility of building a site that displays text and images
Their current client stack is: Web: React Desktop: React + Electron Mobile: React Native + Native
Their commitment to React on so many platforms makes it easy to accumulate bloat. Their need to support lower-level features means they can't avoid native code altogether.
I wonder why they stick with it.
My guess is they don't want to add more hires just for this problem
Their 2018 commitment to RN: https://discord.com/blog/why-discord-is-sticking-with-react-...
Their 2025 complications with it: https://discord.com/blog/supercharging-discord-mobile-our-jo...
Front-end performance is not a hard requirement for most end users, unless the app is actually unusable. Discord isn’t that bad compared to some software I’ve used. You have to get beach balls on startup and complete UI freezes for people to really care. If it’s good enough for most people, shaving some MB off the memory usage or small number of ms off latency isn’t important to the business
I, for one, do not.
But great that we get into some guy's ideation about how Discord is possibly cool, while it's undergoing a major scandal related to ties to Peter Thiel's surveillance company, Palantir, in the botched rollout of age verification[1].
My personal guess is that appearance of articles that paint Discord in a positive light on this forum (and lack substance otherwise) is simply PR.
[1] https://kotaku.com/discord-palantir-peter-thiel-persona-age-...
Hmmm, really? Just mentioning the biggest thing in the news involving Discord right now isn't relevant to a post about Discord, huh?
What can I say, you have a peculiar definition of relevance.
I hear this semi-often, but I don't really get it. The base UI of Discord is pretty normal / looks just like every other chat app out there. Is it the ads for nitro and stuff like that were the issue?
Fair, but all of these things are user controlled. If you're using Discord for work or something, presumably you don't have a bright flashing animated server icon and avatar, your server doesn't have gradient roles, etc.
The super emoji are spot on though, those are fun but were really dumb from the get-go, and waste space in the reaction UI.
Other option would be to limit core features for non paying users.
If you have a fast cgi service inserting a text message into a Postgres database, how many messages do you need until that doesn’t work?
Discord, especially the mobile app, is some of the shittiest, broken software I have encountered. The core protection team is absolute trash at their job
