Products · Broad category
Electron apps
Raised as a usability problem by 203 people on Hacker News over 12 years (2015–2026), in 196 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1
- 2
Every issue, all time, most people first
Loses bookmarking, URL copying, and browser historyUnreviewed
20152026- Wrapping web apps in Electron loses bookmarking, URL copying, history and browser workflows2022-11-29
- Electron apps copy mobile web layouts, hiding separators, windows and settings in sidebars2021-09-07
- Electron apps lack tabs, new windows, normal back button and cookies, so links and logins behave poorly2019-02-13
Apps lose system text shortcuts, forcing learning each app's quirksUnreviewed
20152026- Apps using custom toolkits lose OS-wide text shortcuts, so users must learn each app's quirks2025-11-12
- Custom text editing ignores basic macOS keyboard behaviour, so apps feel janky2024-04-12
- Hard-coded Mac shortcuts conflict with users' muscle memory and native shortcut settings2022-01-16
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Electron-based apps are slow, bloated and buggy to use2026-10-27
- Content overflows everywhere in a desktop app that could fit the screen2026-10-01
- Electron apps feel slow and sluggish, with delayed response to every click2026-09-11
- Electron apps take a long time to load and make slow network round trips2026-08-27
- Config, state and cache files are mixed together in ~/.config, so backups need constant manual exclusion rules2026-08-05
- Desktop apps are unbearably slow to respond, far worse than 1990s PCs2026-08-04
- Vague cutesy error messages that don't say what went wrong2026-07-24
- Desktop apps built on Electron are bloated and slow to use2026-06-22
- Every app looks and acts differently for the same kinds of tasks2026-06-13
- Voice control tools like Dragon cannot reach window contents in Chrome and Electron apps2026-06-02
- Becomes very slow and unusable on older hardware when opening a web browser or Electron app2026-05-17
- Electron apps like Bitwarden and Spotify feel slow and sluggish to use2026-05-14
- Forced keyboard focus breaks Page Up and Page Down scrolling, making apps hard to use2026-05-04
- Electron apps don't support standard shortcuts, look out of place, and lag unexpectedly2026-05-04
- Bloated Electron apps make computers sluggish and slow to use2026-04-25
- Electron-based apps have poor user experience2026-04-24
- Window resizing stutters, drops frames, or leaves coloured bars when enlarging2026-04-06
- Electron apps break Cmd+` window cycling and lag noticeably on input2026-04-06
- Electron apps are laggier than older software despite using lots of memory2026-03-13
- Inconsistent interfaces and aliased shortcuts increase effort switching between apps2026-03-08
- Apps embedding browsers ruin native look and feel, making them inconsistent2026-03-03
- Several Electron apps running at once slow the laptop to a crawl2026-02-27
- Electron apps have inconsistent UI patterns, feel slow and laggy, and don't respond well to the window manager2026-02-22
- Electron apps have inconsistent style and bad usability, looking like patched websites2026-02-21
- Electron's broken accessibility leaves blind users unable to navigate interfaces properly2026-01-11
- Quick start spans two languages and three files, overwhelming for beginners2025-12-31
- Many Electron apps don't support keyboard navigation of the application at all2025-12-19
- AppImage fails to launch out of the box due to AppArmor, requiring manual extraction2025-11-29
- Apps using custom toolkits lose OS-wide text shortcuts, so users must learn each app's quirks2025-11-12
- Over-the-top splash screen that gets dismissed as quickly as possible2025-10-01
- Abandons established desktop UI conventions and muscle memory, with oversized fonts and icons wasting space2025-09-05
- Electron apps are so resource-hungry they cause lag and slow the whole computer2025-08-19
- Apps look simple but each has its own quirks, so users must relearn them instead of OS conventions2025-07-23
- Non-native apps look and work differently, making unfamiliar apps harder to get around in2025-06-20
- Electron apps ignore desktop UI conventions and just wrap a web UI2025-04-17
- Only a few options in the menu bar; the rest must be pixel-hunted in the window2025-03-31
- Electron apps and modern websites are too slow to be usable on older PCs2025-02-13
- Electron apps lack native desktop idioms, so users can't be as productive2025-01-31
- Electron apps ignore OS conventions, so muscle memory for shortcuts fails and the experience feels frustrating2024-11-08
- UI elements redraw and jump around unexpectedly, and keyboard response is slow2024-09-20
- Desktop apps feel terribly slow on older hardware2024-09-17
- Theming and injecting your own JS as a user takes many hoops2024-08-09
- Apps feel slow and bloated, performing terribly for the user2024-07-05
- Mouse wheel scrolling doesn't work; must click and drag or hit tiny buttons2024-04-29
- Custom text editing ignores basic macOS keyboard behaviour, so apps feel janky2024-04-12
- Menu bar reduced to a few items, with the rest hidden in a hamburger menu2024-02-29
- Window resizing tears and rubber-bands; apps feel slow and janky2024-02-23
- Apps take too long to launch, so people prefer phones2024-01-26
- Electron apps lag too much to show keystroke results promptly2024-01-11
- HTML and CSS are awkward for building dynamic, floating-window interfaces2024-01-11