#What is Electron Shadcn?

Electron Shadcn is an Electron boilerplate project that integrates the shadcn/ui component library, combining the power of Tailwind CSS, React, and Electron to streamline desktop app development. Its primary goal is to provide developers with a ready-made setup where they can build beautiful and consistent user interfaces using shadcn’s modern UI components while leveraging Electron to create cross-platform desktop applications. This starter kit helps developers, designers, and startups quickly prototype or build polished desktop apps without worrying about the UI wiring or platform-specific challenges.

#Features ⚡️

• Electron + React + Tailwind CSS integration: Seamless stack to build desktop apps with modern UI technologies

• shadcn/ui component system: Access to a collection of customizable, accessible, and well-designed UI components

• Preconfigured Tailwind CSS setup: Optimized for utility-first styling with zero config needed

• Hot reload and developer tooling: Fast iteration experience during development

• Cross-platform support: Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux via Electron

• Clean project structure: Easy to understand and extend for custom features

#Pros and Cons

#Pros ✅

• Ready-made boilerplate accelerates desktop app development

• Incorporates shadcn/ui components, ensuring high-quality, consistent UI

• Tailwind CSS configuration is pre-set, saving setup time

• Supports live reload for a smooth dev experience

• Cross-platform compatibility via Electron

#Cons ⚠️

• Limited to React; no support out of the box for other frameworks like Vue or Svelte

• Electron apps tend to be larger in bundle size compared to web apps

• Requires familiarity with Electron and React to fully leverage

• Documentation could be more extensive for newcomers

#Included Components - Templates

electron-shadcn includes a variety of UI components from the shadcn/ui library such as:

• Buttons and form elements

• Navigation menus and sidebars

• Modal dialogs and popovers

• Tables and data display components

• Layout primitives for responsive design
  While the boilerplate itself is minimal, it provides the building blocks from shadcn/ui for quick UI assembly, not full app templates.

#Pricing 💵

• Open Source: Free to use, licensed under MIT

• No paid plans or premium features

#Integrations 🧰

• Fully compatible with React (React 18+)

• Uses Tailwind CSS for styling, easily extensible with custom utilities

• Electron backend with Node.js APIs

• Can be extended with other Electron-compatible libraries or React ecosystems (e.g., Redux, React Router)

• No official Vue or Svelte support but could be adapted manually