Tauri binding for Python through Pyo3
27 comments
·October 8, 2025torginus
Since Tauri is just a thin wrapper over the system webview, what's the point of having a wrapper over a wrapper?
I don't think the Python ecosystem was lacking in browser wrappers up till now.
Ciantic
"a thin wrapper over the system webview"
That is very complicated if you take into account also Linux, Windows, iOS, MacOS, Android support, and related utilities like tray icon, etc. There are other efforts, too, but they are also wrappers. Like this C/C++ implementation https://github.com/webview/webview that targets only desktop operating systems.
rubenvanwyk
I don't think the point is just about Python - this means you can use JS front-end with a Python backend for a local app.
est
So why can't Python call system WebView directly? Is passing through layers of Rust really needed here?
Retr0id
Abstractions are rarely "necessary" in a strict sense but since Tauri already solves the problem of doing cross-platform webviews, why not reuse that work?
akshayKMR
I've used pywebview in the past ~2017. Works well.
GardenLetter27
I don't understand why people like Tauri - the fact it uses the system web browser completely destroys the main advantage of Electron: that you can test it locally and be absolutely sure that it will render like that on any other system since the browser is shipped with it.
mpalmer
There's an entire separate copy of Chromium attached to every single goddam Electron app I install. It's completely insane. It's not at all worth the consistency you point out. Far too high a price.
The Tauri team is doing God's work. Electron was a fine enough idea, but I can't wait to see it improve or die. Imagine Electron supporting cross-compilation for mobile OSes. They won't close that particular gap with Tauri any time soon.
Fraterkes
For a lot of people the main advantage of electron was just being able to use the webdev stack for a desktop app. Tauri makes it less portable but is less bloated. Different tradeofs I guess.
Also: I think it’s kinda funny that Tauri is basically a very straightforward of example of trading developer comfort for benefit of the user, and you can’t imagine people using it.
ed_blackburn
Indeed. It's sacrifices engineering cost for customer experience.
gkbrk
> the main advantage of Electron: that you can test it locally and be absolutely sure that it will render like that on any other system
That's not the main advantage of Electron. The main advantage of Electron is being able to use web developers to build your desktop software cross-platform for much cheaper.
iDon
I have drafted a photo gallery app in Rust / Tauri, using a JavaScript framework in the frontend. The backend can read directories and files directly, and because the backend and frontend are in a single process, the backend simply passes a file handle (path string possibly) to the frontend. In contrast Electron has to send the image file between processes. I started with Electron and I think that was the point I shifted to Rust / Tauri; seeing the images display immediately was a revelation. Rust / Tauri has the advantages of a desktop app, and I have the option to use the frontend as a web app also.
This Python binding (pytauri) is interesting too - I have colleagues with Python functionality they want to surface on the web, and this would give the possibility of running as a desktop app also - good for large datasets.
jonpalmisc
The times of browsers having weirdly different rendering behavior are mostly gone, in my experience. I'm sure ~98% of Electron apps that expect Chromium would render just fine/same under WebKit as well.
est
because most Electron apps are not that complex. Just few forms with some buttons.
aitchnyu
Do we have an open source Playwright for multiple mobile browsers?
wolfgangbabad
I agree. I don't mind VS Code or some app a person did eats 300 MB of RAM and is Electron if it does the job done. By the way good luck implement something like rtl, i18n, text select and right click context menus in you favorite C/Go/Rust/ImGui/ImmediateModeWhatever library.
Wanna switch between Arabic, Chinese, English in a textarea or input or the whole app? Trivial in Electron. Again, good luck with that in any other environment.
Electron is superior for any text/form apps. HTML/CSS/JS are truly magical if you dive deeper and for any form-like classical type of crud apps there is really no better option.
With our computers getting more RAM and disk space every few years - especially compared to AI needs, Electron is actually super lean compared to those AI llms models. Funny enough, LM Studio is an Electron app ;)
mpalmer
> With our computers getting more RAM and disk space every few years - especially compared to AI needs, Electron is actually super lean compared to those AI llms models. Funny enough, LM Studio is an Electron app ;)
This is a phenomenally bad take. This is exactly the thought process that has led to the insane software bloat problems we're dealing with now (with Electron as one of the worst offenders).
> good luck implement something like rtl, i18n, text select and right click context menus in you favorite C/Go/Rust/ImGui/ImmediateModeWhatever library.
> Electron is superior for any text/form apps. HTML/CSS/JS are truly magical if you dive deeper and for any form-like classical type of crud apps there is really no better option.
I don't think you understand what Tauri is.
null
rubenvanwyk
Interesting how much cross-pollination is happening in the Python ecosystem with Rust.
I think the NiceGUI example is good but quite advanced, might be beneficial to contact the teams from Reflex or FastHTML, because if you could use PyTauri to create potential local apps with those popular frameworks, it could be a big win for them and that can help with marketing around the project.
wongarsu
Rust and Python have very compatible ideas on a lot of topics. For example both think that a developer writing normal code should not have to worry about null pointers or be able to cause a use-after-free. It's just that Python achieves that with runtime costs and Rust with compile-time costs and a complex type system. So developers of one liking the other makes a lot of sense to me. And pyo3 is an extremely convinient way to call between the two languages
cardanome
> For example both think that a developer writing normal code should not have to worry about null pointers or be able to cause a use-after-free
Like 99% of all languages currently in use.
These things have long been solved way before Rust even existed. Rust has only filled the small niche of cases where you can't or don't want to use automatic garbage collection.
> complex type system
Python's type system is orders of magnitude more complex. Dynamic type systems are crazy powerful, this is why Typescript is such an complex beast.
Rust has static type checking, which is what you mean. Which also means that Rust is limited to the types that are can be expressed and are decidable with that system, while Python allows you to do... whatever and types are only checked at runtime or with external tooling.
Python's type system is easier to use but more complex. Rust's is simpler but harder to use. I know people forget the difference between complex and hard but it is an important one.
A better reason Python is Rust are seen together is that Python is an excellent glue language. Same reason people like C and Python. Plus both Rust and Python are pretty trendy these days.
alejoar
What is Tauri?
kdavis01
A rust-based alternative to electron that leverages the system’s web view instead of a full copy of chromium.
postepowanieadm
Electron.
daemon001
[dead]
stephenanand1
[dead]
Nice. It might be worth copying some of the introductory text from the Tauri package explaining what this does. Otherwise a person to lands on the readme gets a lot of technical detail about how it is built without any idea what it actually does.