Discord is dropping Electron for Rust: what the 290 MB screenshot shows

Discord is rebuilding its whole app in Rust and dropping Electron on desktop and React Native on mobile, co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy said in a post on X on Nov 4. It is an early build, not an update you can install: Discord has not given a release date, and he wrote that the company hopes to get it into testing with users soon.

The number everyone is passing around is about 290 MB of RAM for a build called “Discord Phoenix.” That figure is real, but it is a screenshot of one app on one PC, not a measured comparison. Here is what the post says, what it shows and what it leaves out.

What did Discord announce?

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.)— Stanislav Vishnevskiy, on X, Nov 4

In plain terms: mobile keeps its native look but shares its core code with desktop. Tauri is a common Rust app framework; Vishnevskiy said Discord is using GPUI, a Rust interface toolkit from the makers of the Zed code editor, instead. Both The Verge and Dexerto report the same plan.

What is Electron, and why does it matter for RAM?

Electron lets developers build a desktop app with web technology. The Verge describes it as a cross-platform framework that is notoriously heavy on system resources. In practice, each Electron app ships with its own browser engine, which is part of why chat apps can use as much memory as a web page.

The Verge says RAM use with the current Windows app can easily hit 1 GB or more. That is its general characterization, not a test of a specific machine, and Discord has not published its own figure.

What does the 290 MB screenshot actually show?

The image is a Windows Task Manager “Apps” list. Besides Discord Phoenix at 290.2 MB, it shows Google Chrome at 1,568.6 MB, Notion at 932.5 MB, Steam Client WebHelper at 856.0 MB, Spotify at 652.7 MB, Battle.net at 344.0 MB and World of Warcraft at 1,184.8 MB.

So in that list the new Discord sits well below the other apps. What the picture does not include is the current Discord app, open on the same machine, in the same state.

What did the side-by-side clip show?

Windows Latest says it watched a 15-second clip of the current Electron client and the Rust client opening on two Lenovo ThinkPads, shared on Vishnevskiy’s X account. It says Discord employees confirmed both apps were launched from a cold start, that the old app took about five seconds to reach its interface, and that the new one had its friends list loaded by then.

That is one clip from Discord’s own team, on two laptops chosen by them, and Windows Latest’s frame-by-frame read of it. It is a promising demo. It is not an independent benchmark across different PCs, different servers and long sessions.

Is this the same thing as Game Mode?

No. In September, Discord started testing a Game Mode that automatically reduces animations and disables visual effects while you play, to lower CPU and GPU use, according to Dexerto. That tackles what the app does during a game. The Rust rewrite changes the technology the whole app is built on, as Dexerto puts it. They can coexist, and neither has a public launch date for everyone.

What should you do now?

• Nothing yet. Phoenix is not publicly available, and Discord has not said how testing will work.
• Be careful with reposted numbers. “Uses 290 MB” is what one Task Manager screenshot shows. “Cuts RAM by a given percentage” depends on the test.
• Check your own baseline. Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and note what Discord uses on your PC now, so you can compare when a test build reaches you.

What happens next?

Discord has not said when the full switch happens. The next thing to look for is a public test with real users and real servers, where memory, battery life on laptops and phones, and bugs can be checked by people outside the company.