Desktop is the smallest slice of what we do, and we’re picky about when to take it on. Most of what comes to us as “a desktop app” is actually a web app the user can pin to their dock, and we’ll say so. The projects that genuinely belong on desktop are usually the ones a browser tab can’t serve: real-time media work, offline-first editors, or software that has to talk to hardware.
When desktop is the right answer
It is rarely the first answer. Most of what reaches us as a "desktop app" request is better served by a web application the user can pin to their dock. We will tell you if yours is.
When desktop is genuinely the right choice, it is usually for one of three reasons:
- Latency and throughput. Real-time projection, video pipelines, or hardware control where the 20–100ms overhead of a network round-trip is unacceptable.
- Offline-first by default. Software that must work on unreliable networks or in airgapped environments, with synchronisation as an optional capability rather than a prerequisite.
- OS integration. Global hotkeys, system tray behaviour, menu bar applications, or file-association workflows that a browser cannot provide.
How we build
Our reference stack is Electron with an Astro or Vite front-end, Solid.js
for the view layer, and better-sqlite3 for local persistence. It is not
the only stack we use, but it is the one we know best and the one we
default to unless a project's constraints point elsewhere.
Every desktop project ships with:
- Signed, notarised builds for all three target platforms.
- Automated release pipelines against a self-hosted update server.
- Crash reporting piped to your existing error-tracking service.
- A written update and rollback plan before the first public release.
Representative projects
noted: a distraction-free note-taking application with rich-text editing,
daily notes, tasks, global hotkeys, and local SQLite persistence. Released
under AGPL-3.0.
crater: scripture projection software for churches, covering Bible
translations, a song library, and video and image media. Released under
GPL-3.0.
Both are open source. Sponsored maintenance is available on retainer.