Technical Differences Between Electron and NW.js (formerly node-webkit)

Technical Differences Between Electron and NW.js (formerly node-webkit)

Note: Electron was previously named Atom Shell.

Like NW.js, Electron provides a platform to write desktop applications with JavaScript and HTML and has Node integration to grant access to the low level system from web pages.

But there are also fundamental differences between the two projects that make Electron a completely separate product from NW.js:

1. Entry of Application

In NW.js the main entry point of an application is a web page. You specify a main page URL in the package.json and it is opened in a browser window as the application’s main window.

In Electron, the entry point is a JavaScript script. Instead of providing a URL directly, you manually create a browser window and load an HTML file using the API. You also need to listen to window ev