Production-ready Electron boilerplate

Yes. The boilerplate is free, with no paid tier. LicenseManager is free up to 100 active licenses, and Stripe only charges a fee on the payments you receive.

Electron AppStack is free, source-available software. You can use and modify it to build commercial apps, and sell those apps and their installers. You cannot sell the boilerplate itself as a template, or publish a repackaged or lightly modified version of it as a competing starter kit. Read the full license.

A starting point that covers both sides of a desktop app: the React interface in the renderer, and the Node.js backend in the main process with a SQLite database, typed IPC with tRPC, auto update, releases and licensing, already wired together.

Yes, that is what it is made for. Licensing with LicenseManager and Stripe is built in, and your main process ships as V8 bytecode so your code is not readable in the packaged app. Licensing stays disabled until you configure it, so free apps work too.

Customers pay through a Stripe checkout link, LicenseManager creates a license and emails the key, and the app asks for it in its activation window. Perpetual licenses, subscriptions, a maximum number of computers per license and updates for a limited time are all set in your LicenseManager policy, without changing the code.

They are already there. Set your LicenseManager product id and API key, and the app shows an activation window, validates the key, stores it in the system keychain, keeps working offline for as long as your policy allows and only installs the updates the license includes.

JavaScript in a packaged Electron app is easy to read, so the main process, where the licensing and business logic live, is compiled to V8 bytecode. Electron fuses block running the app as plain Node.js or with inspector flags, and ASAR integrity stops the app from starting if its files were modified.

electron-updater is set up to read GitHub Releases. The app checks for a new version on startup and every 4 hours, downloads it in the background, then offers to restart or installs it when the app quits, on macOS, Windows and Linux (AppImage).

Add your certificates as GitHub secrets: the release workflow signs and notarizes macOS builds with an Apple Developer ID (99 USD per year) and signs Windows builds with Azure Artifact Signing (from 9.99 USD per month). Without the secrets, it still builds unsigned installers.

macOS (dmg, arm64 and x64), Windows (NSIS installer, x64 and arm64) and Linux (AppImage and deb). Merging a pull request is enough for the GitHub Actions workflow to build, sign, notarize and publish installers for every platform.

Yes. Build from a private repository and publish the releases to a second, public repository that only contains the installers, so auto update keeps working without exposing your code.

Electron ships the same Chromium on every platform, so your React app looks and behaves the same everywhere, and the backend is Node.js, with the whole npm ecosystem and one language for the whole app. Tauri makes smaller installers, but uses a different webview per platform and a Rust backend.

Those templates give you a window and a build. Electron AppStack starts where they stop: a typed backend with tRPC and SQLite, routing, a design system, translations, auto update, a release pipeline, source code protection and licensing, all wired together and documented.

No. You copy the template once with degit and the code is yours. There is no package to update and nothing to eject.

Yes. The template ships an AGENTS.md and skills, so Claude Code and other agents follow the project conventions when they add routes, procedures or tables.

I built RabbitGUI, a desktop app made with Electron, and setting everything up took me months: typed IPC, a local database, auto update, code signing on every platform, source code protection, license keys. None of it had anything to do with the app itself. Once it all worked, I turned it into this template and gave it away, so other developers can skip that part and spend their time on their own app.

Open an issue on GitHub with the steps to reproduce it, your platform and what you expected to happen.

Open an issue on GitHub describing your idea and the problem it solves. Feature ideas, better defaults and missing documentation are all welcome.

Pull requests are welcome, from typo fixes to new features. For a big change, open an issue first so we can agree on the approach before you write the code.

Spread the word: star the repository on GitHub and share Electron AppStack on social media, mentioning @NicolasKa3 on X. It helps more developers find it, and it makes my day.

Of course! Open an issue on GitHub with your app name, a link and a screenshot. Mention Electron AppStack on social media and your showcase gets a dofollow backlink to your website.