Ask HN: What Toolchains Are People Using for Desktop App Development in 2025?

I recently came across a comment [0] here that highlighted the challenges of building native desktop apps with LLMs. The commenter pointed out how scarce training resources have become—few blog posts, tutorials, or open-source projects exist compared to web or mobile development. They also noted that while desktop app development was a solid career path in the 90s, it's now seen as a dead end for most, outside of big players like Microsoft or Adobe.

This got me thinking: My own experience with desktop development dates back to the late 90s using Turbo Pascal 6 in Delphi, and I'm out of the loop on modern practices. With the evolving landscape, I'm curious about what tools and workflows developers are actually using today.

Some questions to spark discussion:

- What programming languages and frameworks are popular for desktop apps? - Are there any go-to IDEs, build tools, or libraries that make development easier? - Do the above answers change if you care about code performance or efficiency (whatever that means to you)? - Is native desktop app development still viable as a career, or are most greenfield projects shifting to web-based alternatives?

I'd love to hear from folks with recent experience—success stories, pitfalls, and recommendations would be great. Thanks in advance for sharing!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44841291

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44848058

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44848058