Discord Is Ditching Electron for Rust, Cutting RAM Usage to Just 290MB

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Milan Stanojevic

Windows Toubleshooting Expert

News

2 min. read

Published on November 5, 2026

Discord is rebuilding its desktop application using Rust and GPUI, moving away from the Electron framework that currently powers its Windows client. The company aims to reduce memory consumption, improve startup times, and deliver better performance across its applications.

Discord co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy confirmed the transition, explaining that the company plans to move its entire client to Rust.

Discord is moving away from Electron and React Native

Discord has used Rust since 2018 for its infrastructure, voice technology, and certain parts of its client. Now, the company wants to expand its use across desktop and mobile applications.

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… https://t.co/2CgWyOzaq0 pic.twitter.com/IdOGd4nUgl
— Stanislav (@svishnevskiy) November 4, 2026

The redesigned desktop client will use GPUI instead of Electron, eliminating the need to bundle Chromium to run the interface. Discord has also chosen GPUI over Tauri, another Rust-based framework that typically relies on webviews.

On mobile, Discord plans to move away from React Native while retaining native interfaces. The desktop and mobile applications will share more application code through Rust.

Discord Phoenix uses just 290MB of RAM in an early build

One of the biggest potential improvements involves memory consumption. Discord’s current Electron-based client can use substantial amounts of RAM, sometimes exceeding 4GB.

An early Windows 11 screenshot of the new Discord Phoenix client shows approximately 290.2MB of RAM usage, suggesting a significant reduction in memory requirements.

However, the screenshot represents a single early test rather than typical usage. Independent testing will need to determine how much memory the new client consumes during everyday activities, including voice calls, screen sharing, and multitasking.

Moving away from Electron could also help Discord launch faster and reduce resource usage on Windows PCs.

Discord has not announced a public release date for its redesigned desktop client, so users will have to continue using the existing Electron application for now.

In other news, PlayStation profits rose 83%, Sony secured memory supplies through March 2028, and Xbox Series X|S is getting AMD FSR 4.1.2.

Via Windows Latest