Discord Rust Rewrite Drops Electron, Cuts RAM Use to 290MB

Discord is rebuilding its desktop app in Rust and dropping Electron, the framework that runs apps on a built-in copy of the Chrome browser engine. An early Windows 11 build of the new client, called Discord Phoenix, used just 290.2MB of RAM, while the current app can climb as high as 4GB.

Co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy confirmed the plan on X, saying "Electron goes away, and so does React Native," the framework behind Discord's mobile apps. The company hopes to start testing the new client with users soon, but has not given a release date.

Why Is Discord Leaving Electron?

Electron lets developers build one app for Windows, Mac and Linux using web code, but every Electron app ships with its own browser engine, which makes it heavy on memory. Discord has admitted its Windows app can reach 4GB, and it even tested automatically restarting the client past that point, Windows Latest reports.

Rust is a programming language built for speed and memory safety, and Discord says it has used it since 2018 for its servers, voice technology and parts of the current client. "The holy grail was getting the whole client there," Vishnevskiy wrote, according to The Verge.

What Changes for Discord Users?

The new app is drawn with GPUI, a native interface toolkit, rather than Tauri, a Rust option that still shows a web page inside the system's browser view. Vishnevskiy says the app "looks and works identically to the current one" and should perform better. The screenshot he shared was running two accounts at once, a feature the new client supports. Web content such as YouTube embeds and Activities will still use the system webview.

On mobile, Discord keeps native interfaces but will share the same Rust code with desktop, so features should arrive on every platform more evenly.

Why Does Saving RAM Matter Now?

Memory is expensive, and many budget laptops are shipping with 8GB again. Microsoft recently tuned Windows for those machines with its Windows 11 8GB RAM update, and our guide on how much RAM you need explains why every gigabyte counts. A chat app that sits in the background while you game should not eat several of them.

In our view, this is the most welcome kind of update: invisible on screen, obvious in performance. If the final build stays near 300MB, gamers on 8GB and 16GB PCs could get noticeably smoother play just by updating Discord. The real test is whether Discord can keep feature parity as the app grows.

Discord Rust Rewrite at a Glance

New framework	Rust with GPUI (native)
Replaces	Electron on desktop, React Native on mobile
Early build RAM use	290.2MB (two accounts, Windows 11)
Current app worst case	Up to 4GB
Internal name	Discord Phoenix
Release date	Not announced, user testing "soon"