Native Discord desktop client in Rust

Discord is working toward a fully Rust-based client, a goal its CTO describes as the “holy grail” after years of adopting the language. Since 2018, Rust has already been used across the company’s infrastructure and voice technology, as well as parts of its existing client. The planned rewrite would replace the desktop app’s Electron foundation with a native implementation, rather than simply updating the current architecture.

The change also affects mobile development: Discord plans to remove React Native while retaining native user interfaces on mobile. Mobile and desktop would share application code written in Rust, combining platform-specific presentation with common underlying logic. The new desktop client uses GPUI, not Tauri, a distinction the CTO made in response to speculation about the framework. Discord hopes to begin testing the client with users soon, though no schedule or further implementation details are given. The announcement signals a substantial shift in how Discord builds its apps, consolidating more of the codebase around Rust while preserving native mobile UI.