Why I Build Native macOS Apps Instead of Electron — A Solo Dev's Honest Take

Every time I mention I build native macOS apps, someone asks: "Why not just use Electron?" Fair question. Electron is proven. VS Code runs on it. Slack runs on it. Discord runs on it. The ecosystem is massive, the hiring pool is deep, and you get cross-platform for free. So why would a solo developer voluntarily choose Swift and AppKit over wrapping a web app in Chromium? Here's my honest answer after shipping multiple native Mac apps. The Performance Argument Is Real (But Not Why You Think) Yes, native apps use less RAM. My menu bar app TokenBar idles at around 15MB. An equivalent Electron app would sit at 80-150MB minimum just for the runtime. But here's the thing — most users don't care about RAM numbers. What they do notice is responsiveness. Native apps feel instant. Click something, it happens. No layout reflow, no virtual DOM reconciliation, no garbage collection pauses. For a menu bar utility that you glance at dozens of times a day, that snappiness isn't a luxury. It's the who