Electro is no longer maintained and has been archived as of 29/06/2025.
The primary goal of Electro was to build an image viewer which aligns with the following two core principles:
- Be as fast as you can be
- Be free and open source. Forever.
I spent months experimenting with different languages - Go, C++, C#, Rust, TypeScript - chasing performance gains and refining things down to the millisecond. After three months of building in private, I realised I should probably find out whether anyone actually wanted what I was making. So I pushed myself to strip things back, build a super minimal version of Electro, and just release it.
To my surprise, the response was immediate. Within days, hundreds of people across the world were using Electro, sharing kind words, mentioning issues, and contributing feedback. That support meant the world to me, and it gave me the motivation to dive deeper into GPU rendering, Rust internals, and low-level image processing.
Then finals arrived. I had to put everything on hold. Every waking hour went into my final university project or prepping for exams. I told myself I'd return to Electro once things settled down. Exams ended, and I found myself with one month of freedom before starting a new job. I knew it was going to be intense, so instead of burning that time on a side project, I chose to travel, spend time with friends, and enjoy the last chapter of uni life. No regrets :)
Fast forward to now - I've started work, my days are completely packed, and I've had to accept that keeping Electro alive just isn't feasible right now. I told myself that I would pick it back up on weekends, but today, as I sat down to revisit the codebase, I came across this Reddit post by ggand0. Three months ago, right around the time I paused development, he released ViewSkater - a GPU-accelerated image viewer that is blazingly fast, cross-platform, free, and open source.
In short, it's everything I wanted Electro to be.
Rather than trying to compete or one-up an already incredible project, I'd rather acknowledge great work when I see it and point Electro's users in the right direction. ViewSkater is the real deal, and I'm genuinely happy to see someone else push this vision further than I had the chance to.
Thanks to everyone who supported Electro. It was a blast while it lasted. ViewSkater to the moon! 🚀🚀🚀
Well, ideally the company I work for exits, I become a trillionaire, and I donate all my money to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. I'm kidding (or am I?). There's nothing planned for Electro, but if you're looking for a blazing-fast image viewer to use or contribute to, head over to ViewSkater's repo. It deserves your attention.