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GitHub code size in bytes

Muon is a lightweight alternative to Electron written in Golang in about ~300 LoC, using Ultralight instead of Chromium. Ultralight is a cross-platform WebKit rewrite using the GPU to target embedded desktop applications that resulted in a fast, lightweight, and low-memory HTML UI solution that blends the power of Chromium with the small footprint of Native UI.

Features

Full JS to Go interop
GPU based rendering
Cross-platform
Hot-reloading
Superior disk size + memory & cpu usage

Comparison with a "Hello, World!" React App

	Muon	Electron
CPU	0.0%	1.2%
MEM	26.0 MB	201.7 MB
DISK	42 MB	136 MB

Example

From examples/create-react-app/main.go:

package main

import (
  "github.com/ImVexed/muon"

  "cra-go/webfiles"
  "net/http"
)

func main() {
  // Any static asset packer of your liking (ex. fileb0x)
  fileHandler := http.FileServer(webfiles.HTTP)

  cfg := &muon.Config{
    Title:      "Hello, World!",
    Height:     500,
    Width:      500,
    Titled:     true,
    Resizeable: true,
  }

  m := muon.New(cfg, fileHandler)

  // Expose our `add` function to the JS runtime
  m.Bind("add", add)

  // Show the Window and start the Runtime
  if err := m.Start(); err != nil {
    panic(err)
  }
}

// Muon automatically handles interop to and from the JS runtime
func add(a float64, b float64) float64 {
  return a + b
}

FAQ

Q: How are JS types translated to Go types?

JS: Boolean Go: bool
JS: Number Go: float64
JS: String Go: string
JS: Object Go: struct via JSON

Q: I get `exit status 3221225781` when I try to run my program

Your program likely can't find the Ultralight libraries. Ensure they're either installed on the system, or, in the same folder as your program. Currently, Muon uses the 1.1 Ultralight pre-release that hasn't yet propagated to their main site and can only be downloaded from the Ultralight github repo.

Q: How do I get rid of the Console window on Windows?

Add -ldflags -H=windowsgui to either your go build or go run to get rid of the window.

Q: How do I setup Ultralight?

See our getting started guide

Q: Is there perfect Chrome or Firefox feature parity?

No, see Missing Ultralight Features

Q: I get `libWebCore.so: cannot open shared object file`

If you're attempting to load the libraries out of the same directory as your program add -ldflags "-r ." to your go build to set rpath to the local directory for library resolution.

Q: I get `symbol not found: ulCreateSettings`

This likely means you're not using the 1.1 Ultralight pre-release which can be downloaded only from their GitHub Repo for now

Licensing

While muon itself is MIT licensed, Ultralight is not.

Ultralight is free for non-commercial use, educational use, 
and also free for commercial use by small indie developers making
less than US$100,000 a year. You can find full terms in the SDK. 
Pricing plans for larger commercial projects will be announced later.

Their specific license terms can be found here.

4.1 KiB Raw Blame History