Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Electron VS Materialize CSS

Compare Electron VS Materialize CSS and see what are their differences

Electron logo Electron

Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies

Materialize CSS logo Materialize CSS

A modern responsive front-end framework based on Material Design
  • Electron Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-01
  • Materialize CSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-14

Electron features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Electron allows developers to create applications that run on Windows, macOS, and Linux using a single codebase, making it easier to reach a broader audience.
  • Web Technologies
    Developers can utilize HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (including popular frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue) to build Electron apps, enabling a more accessible development process for web developers.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    Electron benefits from the vast ecosystem of Node.js, granting access to a multitude of packages and modules, and simplifying the inclusion of various functionalities in applications.
  • Auto-Update Mechanism
    Electron has built-in support for auto-updating applications, which saves developers time and effort in managing updates and improves the user experience by keeping the application up-to-date seamlessly.
  • Active Community
    An active community and extensive documentation provide a wealth of resources for developers, from tutorials to plugins, making it easier to find support and improve productivity.

Possible disadvantages of Electron

  • Large File Size
    Because Electron packages both the application code and a version of Chromium, applications tend to be significantly larger in file size compared to native counterparts.
  • High Memory Consumption
    Electron apps can consume more memory because each window runs its instance of Chromium, which can lead to inefficient resource usage, especially on systems with limited memory.
  • Performance
    Due to its reliance on web technologies and Chromium, Electron applications may not perform as well as optimally coded native apps, particularly in resource-intensive scenarios.
  • Security Concerns
    Electron's use of web technologies and features like Node.js integration increases the attack surface, requiring careful handling of security practices to prevent vulnerabilities such as injection attacks.
  • Complexity in Debugging
    Debugging Electron applications can be more complex due to the blend of backend (Node.js) and frontend (browser-like) code, requiring developers to be proficient in multiple debugging tools and techniques.

Materialize CSS features and specs

  • Responsive Design
    Materialize CSS provides a responsive grid system, making it easier to create layouts that work well on various screen sizes and devices.
  • Material Design
    Adheres to Google's Material Design principles, offering a modern and professional look that is consistent across web applications.
  • Component Variety
    Offers a wide range of pre-built components, including forms, buttons, cards, and navigation bars, which helps speed up development.
  • Customization
    Provides options to customize components using Sass, making it flexible for specific design needs.
  • Built-in JavaScript
    Includes built-in JavaScript components like modals, carousels, and tabs, which enhance functionality without requiring additional libraries.

Possible disadvantages of Materialize CSS

  • Learning Curve
    Although it follows Material Design guidelines, there is a learning curve associated with understanding and implementing its various components and classes.
  • File Size
    Including the full library can make your project heavier, affecting load times, especially for users on slower connections.
  • Customization Complexity
    While customizable, deeply customizing or overriding default styles can sometimes be complicated and time-consuming.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Some components still rely on jQuery, adding to the library size and potentially conflicting with modern JavaScript practices.
  • Community Support
    Compared to larger frameworks like Bootstrap, Materialize CSS has a smaller community, which can result in fewer third-party resources and plugins.

Electron videos

💻 Why You Should Build Desktop Software With Electron

More videos:

  • Review - What is Electron: The Hard Parts Made Easy
  • Review - Electron Matrix Review Video

Materialize CSS videos

Build A Travel Agency Theme With Materialize CSS 1.0.0

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Electron and Materialize CSS)
Development Tools
64 64%
36% 36
Design Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Rapid Application Development
Developer Tools
13 13%
87% 87

User comments

Share your experience with using Electron and Materialize CSS. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Electron and Materialize CSS

Electron Reviews

Electron.js Alternatives For Cross-Platform Development
All of this changed when Electron.js came into the picture. The framework allowed developers to create a unique cross-platform desktop application without any hurdles. However, it uses up quite a bit of resource making it harder for developers to create lightweight applications. With this blog, we will look into suitable alternatives for Electron.js.
Source: www.atatus.com
12 Best Frameworks and Toolkits to Build Desktop Applications
If you are looking for an alternative to the Electronjs desktop application development framework, Neutralinojs is a viable option. A few applications may become bulky with Electron, but Neutralinojs can help avoid such problems.
Source: geekflare.com
10 Best Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps 
Electron.js is compatible with a variety of frameworks, libraries, access to hardware-level APIs and chromium engine, and Node.js support. Electron Fiddle feature is great for experimentation as it allows developers to play around with concepts and templates. Simplification is at the center of Electron because developers don’t have to spend unnecessary time on the packaging,...
Electron Alternatives﹣5 Best JavaScript Frameworks for Desktop Apps
If you’re a JavaScript developer, you’re going to need to learn a few relatively simple things on how Electron works and it’s API. You will most probably be able to set up your first Electron desktop application in just a few days.
Source: brainhub.eu
Frameworks & Tools to Develop Cross-Platform Desktop Apps – Best of
Enyo is an open-source JavaScript framework, like Electron, that allows developers to create native-quality apps for desktop, mobile, and TV. Enyo can run across all the relatively modern and standard web-based environments. It’s battle-tested and comes with a beautiful cross-platform UI toolkit for creating rich user interfaces.

Materialize CSS Reviews

15 Top Bootstrap Alternatives For Frontend Developers in 2024
Material Design is a design language that combines classic principles of successful design with innovation and technology. One of the downsides of Materialize is that it does not support older versions of web browsers, and sometimes it does not handle certain nestings of components properly, resulting in an odd appearance.
Source: coursesity.com
9 Best Bootstrap Alternatives | Best Frontend Frameworks [2024]
Materialize is a modern responsive front-end framework based on the Material Design principles of Google. Material design is a design language created by Google, which combines traditional design methods with innovations and technology.
Source: hackr.io
Top 10 Best CSS Frameworks for Front-End Developers in 2022
Created by Google in 2014, Materialize is a responsive UI framework for websites and Android apps. It provides many ready-to-use components, classes, and starter templates. It is compatible with Sass and has a responsive layout based on Bootstrap’s 12-column grid format. The best part? Its extensive color palettes. So, if you want to work with Material Design (Google’s...
Source: hackr.io
15 Best CSS Frameworks: Professional Bootstrap and Foundation Alternatives
It’s specifically designed to help you develop faster using a standard template and customizable components. As the name suggests, Materialize is based on the basic principles of Material Design.
10 of the Best Bootstrap Alternatives
Materialize is a Design-inspired front-end framework that offers everything you need to create beautiful websites and apps. It includes a responsive grid system, CSS components, and animation libraries. Materialize is also easy to use and customizable, making it the perfect choice for any project. Furthermore, a single basic responsive framework across all phases minimizes...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Materialize CSS should be more popular than Electron. It has been mentiond 26 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Electron mentions (14)

  • Design Systems with Web Components
    So we talked a lot about the Atomic Design Principle, but you could just use that in any system and start creating. You could have Angular components, React Components, and Vue Components. But if you notice these don't easily work Everwhere. So the solution is to use Web Components because the modern browser can already understand these, and any Front-End framework can then utilize these components. You can use... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Building Apps with Tauri and Elixir
    For the longest time, building desktop apps was a daunting task to web developers. That is, until technologies like Electron made creating these apps more approachable to a wider audience. Today, we’ve got a wide array of native applications built with solutions like Electron, Tauri, Capacitor, and many more. While these are great solutions, sometimes configuration can be tricky and the applications we create can... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • SvelteKit + Electron: Create your desktop web app
    I make a new Adapter for SvelteKit apps that prerenders your entire site as a collection of static files for use with Electron. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Electron: Build Desktop Applications Using Plain Javascript
    Electron is a cross-platform shell — a user interface for accessing operating system services both via command line (CLI) and graphical user interface (GUI). - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Circuit To Turn On Desktop PC
    Electron (https://electronjs.org/) is a framework for developing cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. This is the technology behind many popular apps like Slack, Discord and Visual Studio Code. Join for discussions around Electron! Source: over 2 years ago
View more

Materialize CSS mentions (26)

  • Top 5 Best CSS Frameworks for Responsive Web Design in 2024
    Materialize is a modern CSS framework based on Google’s Material Design. It was created and designed by Google to provide a unified and consistent user interface across all its products. Materialize is focused on user experience as it integrates animations and components to provide feedback to users. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Front-end Framework: Comparing Bootstrap, Foundation and Materialize
    Materialize was created by a team of developers at Google, inspired by the principles of Material Design. Material Design is a design language developed by Google that emphasizes tactile surfaces, realistic lighting, and bold, graphic interfaces. Materialize aims to bring these principles to web development by providing a framework with ready-to-use components and styles based on Material Design. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Took a web development job without much experience, am I doomed?
    If you wanna make it look nice use materialize css works great with Django templates. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Best 3 Bootstrap Alternatives
    You can also visit the Materialize website and GitHub repository which currently has garnered over 38k likes and has been forked over 4k times by developers. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • All About Hacktober Fest 2022 You Need To Know
    This repository consists of files required to deploy a Web App or PWA created with Materialize Css. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Electron and Materialize CSS, you can also consider the following products

Qt - Powerful, flexible and easy to use, Qt will help you not only meet your tight deadline, but also reduce the maintainable code by an astonishing percentage.

Bootstrap - Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and JS for popular UI components and interactions

Flutter - Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀

Tailwind CSS - A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom user interfaces.

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Foundation - The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world