Discord is working on a major redesign of its desktop and mobile apps, moving away from Electron and React Native in favor of a Rust-based architecture.
The change could make the desktop app significantly lighter on system resources while allowing the company to share more code across platforms.
Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy announced the plans on X, explaining that the company has been using Rust since 2018. Much of its infrastructure, voice technology, and parts of its existing client already rely on the language. Moving the entire client to Rust has been a long-standing goal.
We’ve been early adopters of Rust since 2018 and a lot of our infra, voice tech, and even some of the current client is already Rust, the holy grail was getting the whole client there. That means Electron goes away, and so does React Native, mobile keeps native UI but shares app code with desktop via Rust. We hope to get it into testing with users soon™. (And it’s not Tauri, it’s GPUI, so good guess everyone.) Alright, back to staring at the WoW Forever login screen.
— Stanislav (@svishnevskiy) November 4, 2026
The new desktop app will replace Electron with GPUI, a Rust-based user interface framework developed by Zed. Discord is also moving away from React Native, although its mobile apps will retain their native interfaces.
Instead of maintaining separate application logic for desktop and mobile, Discord plans to share more of its code through Rust. This could simplify development while allowing the company to preserve the familiar experience on each platform.
Memory usage is one of the biggest reasons behind the change. Vishnevskiy shared a screenshot showing the new Windows client using around 290MB of RAM. Discord’s current desktop app can use more than 1GB, particularly when users are active across multiple servers.
Electron relies on web technologies and includes a browser runtime, which can make desktop apps more resource-intensive. Moving to Rust could help Discord reduce that overhead, although actual performance will depend on how the new client handles its features.
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Discord has not announced a release date for the redesigned app. Vishnevskiy said the company hopes to get it into testing with users soon.
Discord Is Rebuilding Its App in Rust to Use Less Memory
