From web to desktop. | Desktopr

Hey everyone, we are launching Desktopr, a tool that lets you turn an existing web app into a real native desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The idea is simple: you provide the public URL of your web app, configure a few details like app name, icon, version, window settings, and Desktopr generates installable desktop builds for the major platforms, with many native features accessible through Desktopr bridge API. What Desktopr does: - Wraps your existing web app in a native Tauri-based desktop shell; - Builds native installers for Windows, macOS, and Linux; - Supports desktop features through the Desktopr Bridge API; - Lets your web app call native capabilities such as notifications, window controls, events, filesystem-safe storage, app metadata, plugins and more; - Supports signing/distribution workflows depending on the platform; - Gives you full ownership of the generated desktop app. One of the main things I wanted to avoid was the “hosted wrapper forever” model. With Desktopr, you are not locked into a monthly subscription just to keep your desktop app alive. The model is pay-per-build: you pay when you generate a build (signing is included), and the generated app belongs to you and you can do whatever you want with it. Only our optional distribution service is accessible through a subscription. Another part I’m excited about is the potential of the WASM-based plugins. Desktopr’s Plugins provide a secure, sandboxed, and flexible runtime for executing WebAssembly (WASM) modules inside your desktop app. This allows us and developers to extend app capabilities and distribute new functionality without forcing a full app rebuild. This unlocks many opportunities, and opens the door to running heavier logic on the local machine such as: - data processing; - big file parsing; - data engineering tasks; - local AI-related taks; - scientific or technical computations; - privacy-sensitive processing; - workflows where uploading raw data to a server is not ideal. We built Desktopr because web development is much more accessible than desktop native development, thanks to easier development tools and no-code platforms. Other than that, going from “web app” to “installable desktop app” usually means dealing with a lot of annoying details: native wrappers, installers, platform-specific packaging, signing, notarization, build pipelines etc. Therefore, making the power of a native desktop app easily available to web and no-code developers can bring so much value to many projects. You can check out Desktopr here: https://desktopr.app