Building Desktop Apps with Rust and Tauri: The Complete 2025 Guide

1. What is Tauri and why it matters in 2025

Desktop application development is experiencing a paradigm shift. While Electron has dominated cross-platform development for years, Tauri has emerged as a lightweight alternative, particularly appealing to those looking for minimal footprint, enhanced security, and Rust-backed performance.

At Plutenium, we've watched Tauri evolve from an experimental framework to a production-ready toolkit that's changing how we build desktop applications. Tauri 2.0 now targets mobile platforms alongside desktop, allowing developers to reach users on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS from a single codebase.

What makes Tauri different:

• Tiny binaries - Apps as small as 2.5-3 MB vs Electron's 80-120 MB
• Native webview - Uses system browser instead of bundling Chromium
• Rust backend - Memory-safe, blazing-fast application core
• Web frontend - Build UI with React, Vue, Svelte, or vanilla JavaScript
• Security-first - Built-in security model with restricted system access

The framework's architecture is elegant: your frontend runs in the system's native webview while communicating with a Rust-powered backend. This means web developers can build desktop apps using familiar technologies while leveraging Rust's performance and safety for critical operations.

2. Tauri vs Electron: The performance revolution

The comparison between Tauri and Electron reveals dramatic differences that impact user experience and development costs. Let's examine the data.

Application size comparison:

Electron's bundled Chromium engine results in binaries typically 80-120 MB, while Tauri binaries are as small as 2.5-3 MB. This 97% reduction in file size translates to faster downloads, quicker updates, and lower bandwidth costs.

Memory consumption:

Tauri apps use around 30-40 MB of RAM for basic applications, compared to Electron's 100 MB for similar functionality. This efficiency becomes critical when users run multiple desktop applications simultaneously.

Startup performance:

Tauri startup times clock in under 500 milliseconds, while Electron apps average 1-2 seconds on mid-range hardware. Users notice this difference immediately it's the gap between instant responsiveness and waiting.

"Tauri apps use 50% less memory than Electron equivalents, a gap widened by Electron's Chromium overhead."

Why the massive difference?

Unlike Electron which bundles Chromium and Node.js into each app, Tauri uses the system's webview, drastically reducing application size and resource consumption. Instead of shipping an entire browser with your application, Tauri leverages what's already installed on the user's system.

Security advantages:

Tauri's Rust backend limits system access by default, reducing exploit risks, while Electron's Node.js exposure requires careful sandboxing. Combined with Rust's memory safety guarantees, this creates a robust security foundation.

The performance benefits aren't just theoretical they translate to better user experiences, lower infrastructure costs, and more sustainable applications that respect system resources.

3. Building your first Tauri application

Getting started with Tauri is straightforward, especially if you're already familiar with web development. Let's walk through creating your first application.

Prerequisites:

Before starting, ensure you have Rust installed. Update your Rust installation with:

rustup update

The CLI will create a project structure with both frontend and Rust components ready for development.

Create your project:

Tauri offers a single-line command to start a new project:

npm create tauri-app@latest

The interactive setup will ask you to choose:

• Project name
• Frontend framework (React, Vue, Svelte, vanilla JS, or even .NET)
• Package manager (npm, yarn, pnpm)
• TypeScript support

Project structure:

Your Tauri project contains two main parts:

my-tauri-app/
├── src/              # Frontend code (your web app)
├── src-tauri/        # Rust backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   └── lib.rs    # Main Rust entry point
│   ├── Cargo.toml    # Rust dependencies
│   └── tauri.conf.json  # Tauri configuration

Creating Rust commands:

Tauri provides a command system for calling Rust functions from your web app with type safety. Here's a simple example:

#[tauri::command]
fn greet(name: &str) -> String {
    format!("Hello, {}! Welcome to Tauri.", name)
}
 
#[cfg_attr(mobile, tauri::mobile_entry_point)]
pub fn run() {
    tauri::Builder::default()
        .invoke_handler(tauri::generate_handler![greet])
        .run(tauri::generate_context!())
        .expect("error while running tauri application");
}

Calling Rust from JavaScript:

From your frontend, invoke the Rust function:

import { invoke } from "@tauri-apps/api/core";
 
const greeting = await invoke("greet", { name: "Developer" });
console.log(greeting); // "Hello, Developer! Welcome to Tauri."

Running your app:

npm run tauri dev

This launches your application in development mode with hot-reloading for your frontend and automatic rebuilding for Rust changes.

Building for production:

npm run tauri build

This creates optimized binaries for your target platform in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Resources to accelerate learning:

• Official Tauri documentation - Comprehensive guides and API references
• Tauri Discord community - Currently 17,700 members providing support and sharing projects
• awesome-tauri - Curated list of plugins, applications, and guides
• Template repositories - Pre-configured projects for popular frameworks

4. Real-world applications powered by Tauri

Tauri isn't just theoretical real applications are shipping to millions of users. Let's examine some success stories.

Ariadne - Git Client

The popular Git client Ariadne is praised for its responsive UI and minimal system footprint, starting in under one second and occupying less than 40 MB on disk. Compared to Electron-based alternatives, Ariadne demonstrates Tauri's efficiency in production environments.

LumenTrack - Cryptocurrency Portfolio Tracker

The cryptocurrency portfolio tracker LumenTrack benefits from Tauri's security-first approach, ensuring private key storage and wallet syncs remain isolated from potential threats. Its use of Rust ensures faster data aggregation and lower memory usage critical for financial applications.

LangForge - Educational Software

Tauri is being used in educational software like LangForge, which leverages native OS capabilities while keeping user data secure on-device ideal for privacy-sensitive learning applications.

Industry adoption trends:

In 2025, a quiet revolution is reshaping how we build desktop and mobile apps. The shift toward Tauri reflects broader industry recognition that application efficiency matters both for user experience and environmental impact.

Plugin ecosystem:

Tauri's plugin system supports mobile plugins, allowing developers to write native code in Swift on iOS and Kotlin on Android, directly exposing functions to the frontend.

Popular plugins include:

• HTTP client - Access the Rust HTTP client from frontend
• SQL database - Interface with SQLite through sqlx
• File system - Secure file access with scoped permissions
• Notifications - Send native system notifications
• Store - Persistent key-value storage
• Updater - In-app updates for Tauri applications

"The Tauri community in 2025 is vibrant and rapidly growing, with GitHub repositories and Discord channels showing consistent increases in contributors"

5. When to choose Tauri for your project

Choosing the right framework requires understanding your project's specific needs. Here's when Tauri excels and when alternatives might be better.

✓ Choose Tauri when:

Performance is critical - If your application needs to run smoothly on older hardware or resource-constrained systems, Tauri's efficiency is unmatched.

Download size matters - SaaS applications, frequent updates, or bandwidth-limited users benefit enormously from smaller binaries.

Security is paramount - Financial applications, healthcare software, or privacy-focused tools gain from Rust's memory safety and Tauri's restricted system access.

Native integration needed - Tauri enables integration with Swift, Kotlin, and native OS features, perfect for apps requiring deep system access.

Modern tech stack - If your team is already using React, Vue, or Svelte, Tauri integrates seamlessly while adding Rust's power.

Mobile expansion planned - Tauri 2.0's mobile support means you can target Android and iOS from the same codebase.

Consider Electron when:

Rapid prototyping - Electron excels in rapid prototyping and complex GUIs, with its JavaScript ecosystem suiting apps needing extensive libraries.

Established ecosystem - If your project depends heavily on Node.js libraries without Rust equivalents, Electron provides immediate access.

Team expertise - Teams with no Rust experience might prefer staying in familiar JavaScript territory initially.

Consistent rendering - When pixel-perfect consistency across all platforms is more important than file size.

The hybrid approach:

Many teams don't choose between Tauri and Electron they use both strategically. Prototype with Electron's rapid development, then optimize performance-critical applications with Tauri. Or use Electron for complex internal tools while shipping lightweight Tauri apps to customers.

Getting started checklist:

1. Evaluate requirements - List your performance, security, and size constraints
2. Assess team skills - Consider Rust learning curve vs immediate productivity
3. Build a prototype - Create a small proof-of-concept in both frameworks
4. Measure metrics - Compare startup time, memory usage, and bundle size
5. Plan migration - If moving from Electron, identify components to convert first

Conclusion: The future of desktop development

Tauri represents more than a new framework it signals a fundamental shift in how we approach desktop application development. The days of accepting bloated binaries and excessive resource consumption are ending.

Tauri's growth in 2025, with mobile support and increasing Rust adoption, signals scalability for modern solutions. As environmental concerns grow and users demand faster, more efficient software, Tauri's advantages become strategic differentiators.

At Plutenium, we help organizations navigate technology choices to build scalable, secure, and high-performance solutions. Whether you're exploring Tauri for a new project, migrating from Electron, or building cross-platform applications spanning desktop and mobile, understanding Tauri's capabilities is essential for staying competitive.

The question isn't whether Tauri will gain adoption it's already happening. The real question is how quickly your organization can leverage its advantages to deliver better experiences to your users.

Ready to build with Tauri? Contact Plutenium to discuss how we can help you create lightweight, high-performance desktop applications that delight users and reduce infrastructure costs.