Discord's new Rust app will likely start faster and use less memory than an Electron app like Fluxer's desktop app, but which app runs better on your computer can change with every release on both sides. We expect Discord's new app to be fast and efficient, and an app's speed also depends on much more than the programming language it's written in.
Discord's co-founder and CTO, Stanislav Vishnevskiy, said on November 4, 2026 that Discord is moving its whole app to Rust and that Electron goes away on desktop.1 You can read what he said and why we expect it to turn out well. Speed isn't the only thing that changes, though. The new desktop app also ends client mods, which people use to declutter and customize Discord, and that works in favor of its advertising business.
Does a native app always use less memory?
A native app doesn't always use less memory, even though it usually starts with less memory than an Electron app, which brings its own copy of a browser engine. After it starts, its speed and memory use depend on how much the app loads, what it does in the background and how carefully it's tuned over time. Every image, video and animation an app shows adds work for your computer, whatever language it's written in.
In the screenshot Discord's CTO posted, the new Windows app used 290 MB of memory, according to The Verge.2 That's one screenshot of an app nobody outside Discord can try yet, and it doesn't show how much memory the app uses after hours in busy servers. Vishnevskiy also wrote in a reply that the app in the screenshot had two Discord accounts signed in at the same time, which the new app supports.3
The team behind the Zed code editor built GPUI, the Rust UI framework Discord is using, because it wanted every frame drawn on time, even at 120 frames a second.4 GPUI gives Discord's new desktop app a fast base for its engineers to build on.
A web-based app can also be fast when it's written carefully, and Discord's current Electron app is well made and keeps getting faster with its regular updates.
What is Fluxer doing about performance?
We work on the speed of Fluxer's apps on every platform all the time, and our patch notes list recent examples. If Fluxer runs slowly on your computer, please report it as a bug with your device and your Fluxer version, and we'll look into it.
Our web and desktop apps use Rust where it helps, for example to unpack data from our servers and to crop and rotate images. The desktop app uses it to capture your screen, and we keep moving parts to Rust when it makes them faster or more reliable.
For people who want a desktop app that doesn't use Electron, we've started work on Fluxer Lite (working name), a desktop version of our native iOS and Android app. It isn't available yet and has no release date, and our Electron app stays fully supported. You can read how we expect it to compare with Discord's new app for speed and memory.
How should I compare them?
When Discord's new app comes out, the fairest comparison is how both apps run on your own device with the communities you use every day. Tests and benchmarks from other people are useful, especially when they say which version of each app they used.
Sources
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Post by Stanislav Vishnevskiy, X, published 2026-11-04, accessed 2026-11-05.
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Discord is ditching Electron and its new app uses less RAM, Tom Warren, The Verge, published 2026-11-05, accessed 2026-11-05.
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Reply by Stanislav Vishnevskiy, X, published 2026-11-04, accessed 2026-11-05.
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Leveraging Rust and the GPU to render user interfaces at 120 FPS, Zed blog, Antonio Scandurra, published 2023-03-07, accessed 2026-11-05.