[HN Gopher] When Code is Free, Why is Claude is an Electron app?
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When Code is Free, Why is Claude is an Electron app?
Author : dbreunig
Score : 98 points
Date : 2026-02-21 21:28 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dbreunig.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dbreunig.com)
| mihaela wrote:
| Exactly. Shameful explanation.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Yawn the 90/10 excuse again and 'Shipping it everywhere' is a
| blatant lie there is still no Linux release. Looks like you are
| talking about Claude Code as Claude. Claude would be the Desktop
| app...
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Or: Why can't I log in to Claude on my laptop? It opens a browser
| with an indefinite spinner, and when I click "Login" on the
| website, it forwards me to register instead. Not really selling
| it as the future of coding if their fundamentals are this screwed
| up!
| jsiepkes wrote:
| That, and the IntellIJ plugin of Claude is basically the Claude
| CLI running in a terminal. Also pretty underwhelming.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Free as in puppy
| rr808 wrote:
| Can we talk about how much copilot sucks in vscode? I have to use
| for work, buggy as hell for the premier product of a trillion
| dollar company.
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| Copilot in vscode is a fucking nightmare!
|
| After spending $450 in January for the nightmare, I switched to
| $200 month subscription using the Claude Code plugin which I
| assume is a wrapper around the Claude Code cli -- 1000% better.
|
| The trillion dollar company seriously needs to start dumping
| upper and mid management! You can quote me on that.
| cedws wrote:
| I use Claude Code in Zed via ACP and have issues all the time.
| It pushes me towards using the CLI, but I don't want to do
| things that way because it's a vibe coding workflow. I want to
| be in the drivers seat, see what the agent has done and be able
| apply or reject hunks.
| chambored wrote:
| I'm in the same situation. Zed's Claude Code is better in
| terms of control, but it's wildly buggy and unreliable.
| Definitely not a drop in replacement.
| hu3 wrote:
| Not my experience. What doesn't work for you?
|
| I use Opus 4.6, Gemini 3.1 and GPT Codex 5.3 mostly on it.
|
| For small tools. But also for large projects.
|
| Current projects are:
|
| 1) .NET C#, Angular Oracle database. Around 300k LoC.
|
| 2) Full stack TypeScript with Hono on backend, React on
| frontend glued by trpc, kysely and PostgreSQL. Around 120k LoC.
|
| Works well in both. I'm using plan mode and agent mode.
|
| My only complain is that it tends to get stutters after many
| sessions/hours. A restart fixes it.
|
| $39/mo plan.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| As long as we're on the subject, I'll take the opportunity here
| to vent about how embarrassingly buggy VS Code is in general.
| It throws me for a loop that pros voluntarily use it on the
| rare occasions I'm forced to use it instead of JetBrains.
| SuperHeavy256 wrote:
| Call them out, call them out. Why isn't Claude a native Windows
| x64 app if code is free?
| shimman wrote:
| Seriously, they claim to be able to make a C compiler but they
| can't make a TUI without using javascript? It's beyond
| pathetic.
| fragmede wrote:
| To be fair in that respect, Claude code does have a native
| rust implementation you can use.
| 827a wrote:
| Electron isn't that bad. Apps like VSCode and Obsidian are among
| the highest quality and most performant apps I have installed.
| The Claude app's problem is not electron; its that it just sucks,
| bad. Stop blaming problems on nativeness.
| AreShoesFeet000 wrote:
| Maybe Electron isn't that bad. Maybe there are some great
| Electron apps. But there's a big chunk that went unsaid: Most
| Electron apps suck. Does correlation here imply causation?
| Maybe not, but holy fuck isn't it frustrating to be a user of
| Electron apps.
| vsgherzi wrote:
| I think you're missing the point a little friendo, it's not
| that electron is bad it's that electron itself is an
| abstraction for cross platform support. If code can be
| generated for free then the question is why do we need this to
| begin with why can't Claude write it in win32, SwiftUI, and
| gtk?
|
| The answer of course is that it can't do it and maintain
| compatibility between all three well enough as it's high effort
| and each has its own idiosyncrasies.
| overgard wrote:
| I don't think anyone on the AI hype train cares about
| performance, memory usage, or code quality (measured by bugs).
| Customers will, though.
| awepofiwaop wrote:
| Judging by the state of most software I use, customers
| genuinely could not care less about bugs. Software quality is
| basically never a product differentiator at this point.
| thepancake wrote:
| Nailed it.
| Austin_Conlon wrote:
| Would be a much better UX if it had multi-window support and a
| separate settings window.
| selridge wrote:
| Why stop there!
|
| We should refuse to accept coding agents until they have fully
| replaced chromium. By that point, the world will see that our
| reticence was wisdom.
| jsheard wrote:
| Likewise OpenAIs browser is still only available on macOS, four
| months after launch, despite being a wrapper around a browser
| engine which already runs on everything under the sun.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| The Claude app is one giant garbanzo bean. I uninstalled it and
| pinned the web app to my dock instead.
| ivankra wrote:
| > For now, Electron still makes sense
|
| A few years ago maybe. Tauri makes better sense for this use case
| today - like Electron but with system webviews, so at least
| doesn't bloat your system with extra copies of Chrome.
| qudat wrote:
| Code isn't free when you have to review and QA it
| Jackevansevo wrote:
| Because Anthropic and the rest of them are lying to you about the
| sophistication of these tools.
|
| The fact that claude code is a still buggy mess is a testament to
| the quality of the dream they're trying to sell.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Write everything in C.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Because when a service is running at a loss the investors want
| their money to be spent efficiently.
| emporas wrote:
| Not all code qualities are free. Good quality code, still
| expensive.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Because code isn't free.
|
| I can see it in my team. We've all been using Claude a lot for
| the last 6 months. It's hard to measure the impact, but I can
| tell our systems are as buggy as ever. AI isn't a silver bullet.
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