Wails

Wails lets Go developers build desktop apps with a web frontend (React, Vue, Svelte or plain HTML) and ship them as one native binary. Instead of bundling a whole browser the way Electron does, it uses the web view the operating system already has. Free under MIT, no paid tier.

Wails v3.0.0 went stable on October 26, 2026, nearly four years after the first v3 alpha. It adds multiple windows, system tray, notifications, an in-app updater, code signing and installers, plus experimental iOS and Android builds. v2 still gets critical updates, but moving to v3 is a real port, not a version bump. wails3 setup checks and installs what you need. The site claims roughly 15MB binaries versus Electron's 150MB. Solo Go developers through larger teams: free, and the cost is engineering time, not licenses.

The catch: native web views mean WebView2 on Windows, WebKit on macOS and WebKitGTK on Linux, so your UI can behave differently per OS. Tauri makes the same trade; only Electron ships one engine everywhere. In October the project also published a batch of security advisories, several rated high. v3.0.0 fixes all but one, and v2 users need 2.17.0 or later.