Discord Rebuilds Desktop and Mobile Apps in Rust, Replacing Electron and React Native
Updated
Updated · InvenGlobal · Nov 5
Discord Rebuilds Desktop and Mobile Apps in Rust, Replacing Electron and React Native
3 articles · Updated · InvenGlobal · Nov 5
Summary
Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy said the company is rebuilding its entire client in Rust, extending an earlier desktop effort to mobile and aiming to start user testing soon.
Rust will let Discord share code across desktop and mobile while keeping native mobile interfaces; Vishnevskiy said the new app should look and work like the current one but perform better.
GPUI powers the native client rather than Tauri, with system webviews used only for features like YouTube and Activities; Discord has added its own patches on top of the framework.
A Windows Task Manager screenshot showed the early "Discord Phoenix" build using 290.2 MB of RAM while running two accounts, far below the current Electron app's typical 1-4 GB range.
Discord has used Rust since 2018 across infrastructure, voice and parts of the current client, while its mobile apps had converged on React Native after Android lagged behind iOS on features.