1Password 8 Mac Electron App Experiment

Hi jdwusami, thanks once again for the feedback.

I respect the fact that you think going with Electron is a mistake - but again, there were a number of engineering and design reasons behind this decision, so our focus here has been what's going to provide the best experience for the customer, as it has been from the beginning.

If possible, we'd love to hear about what specific concerns you have. Does it have to do with the UI? Or how certain workflows in the app? How security measures are implemented? These are all things we are constantly working to improve and perfect.

What I'm trying to say is: not all apps that make some use of Electron are the same, and the fact that 1Password 8 uses it doesn't make it equivalent to other apps that provide a sub-par experience (not singling anyone out in particular here). Rather, we're dedicated to making an app experience par excellence, and so far we've found that the best way to do it is with a combination of languages I mentioned in the post above, which includes (yes) Electron as part of the overall product.

In case you're curious, here are a few resources around this topic:

Our electron hardener, which we have provided for free to the community so that other developers can use it as well: https://github.com/1password/electron-hardener

Mitchell Cohen, product lead at 1Password, discusses Electron app hardening at Northsec conference: https://nsec.io/session/2021-how-to-harden-your-electron-app.html

Users on Reddit have noted that 1Password's performance is: really good!
https://www.reddit.com/r/1Password/comments/o0f3r9/introducing_1password_8_for_windows_early_access/h1vjtr6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

And it's hard to say it better than Roustem did here:
https://1password.community/discussion/comment/608477/#Comment_608477

"We are trying to build the best experience possible with the tools we have today. 1Password desktop app was rewritten from scratch several times and if there is a better technology with clear advantages available tomorrow, we will be there to adopt it.

We argue the differences between AppKit, SwiftUI, Catalyst, Electron, Tauri, etc but it is also a very low-level discussion in many ways. It is very important for us to make 1Password better as a product: add features that were on the back-burner for years, make it easier to new users, make it more powerful for advanced users, support both individual/family and business customers, try to not break existing workflows that people had for years and at the same time also create new better ones."

And in truth, this has already begun to happen. We've been able to roll out a number of new features in just the last few months thanks to the streamlining of processes that the current approach makes possible. The apps will benefit across the board as a result. 👍