Discord Ditches Electron for Rust: 290MB RAM Claim Explained

Discord is dropping Electron. Co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy confirmed on X on November 4 that the company is rebuilding its whole client in Rust, and an early Windows 11 build called "Discord Phoenix" showed 290.2MB of RAM in Task Manager. Here is what is confirmed, what is not, and what it means for PC gamers who keep Discord open next to a game.

Quick summary

• Discord is moving its desktop app from Electron to Rust, with the GPUI interface framework.
• React Native is also being dropped on mobile; phones keep a native interface but share app code with desktop through Rust.
• An early Windows build was shown at 290.2MB of RAM, a number from Discord's own machine.
• No public release date has been announced; Vishnevskiy only said testing with users should come "soon".

What did Discord actually announce?

Vishnevskiy wrote that Discord has used Rust since 2018 for infrastructure, voice technology and part of the current client, and that "the holy grail was getting the whole client there". That means Electron goes away on desktop. Mobile keeps native UI but moves its shared logic to Rust, so desktop and phone apps can reuse the same code. He also said the interface is built on GPUI, not Tauri as some users had guessed.

Why does Electron use so much RAM?

Every Electron app ships with its own copy of the Chromium browser engine, so each one carries a browser's memory overhead. Discord itself has acknowledged that its Windows client can climb very high; a Discord employee said in a December 2025 Reddit post that the company was testing a restart when memory passes 4GB, while normal use stays under 1GB, as reported by Windows Latest and 9to5Windows. Reports describe 1-2GB as common once you sit in a handful of servers.

How much RAM does the new Discord use?

The screenshot shows Discord Phoenix at 290.2MB, next to Chrome at about 1.5GB and Notion at about 930MB. Treat it carefully. Vishnevskiy later clarified that the test had two Discord accounts running, which cuts the other way, but it is still a single early test on Discord's own PC. Headlines claiming "14 times less RAM" divide the 4GB worst case by 290MB; that is not a head-to-head test. Discord has also not shared any CPU numbers. Wisevoter's summary cites a 5% reduction in p95 memory so far.

Why does this matter for PC gamers right now?

RAM is expensive and tight. Our look at RAM prices and PC gamers shows why a background app that eats a gigabyte matters on 16GB systems; the latest Steam Hardware Survey still shows 16GB as the common setup. A lighter Discord would leave more memory for games and a browser.

What do we still not know?

• When the new client reaches public testing or stable release.
• Feature parity: overlays, screen sharing, plugins and accessibility have not been detailed.
• Real-world CPU and RAM use across voice calls and screen sharing.

Until then the current app is what you get. Check our deals page for free games while you wait.

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