&gt; the PhoneGap&#x2F;Cardova &quot;web wrapper&quot; concept is derided as awful compared to native code<p>Yes, but mobile and desktop are quite different. For one, desktop has a lot more power - one of the biggest issues with PhoneGap etc. is that it&#x27;s just <i>slow</i>, and, particularly, single threaded. That doesn&#x27;t matter so much on desktop.<p>Also the other complaint is that PhoneGap doesn&#x27;t use native UI components. Desktop has a huge variety in UI compared to mobile (think Microsoft Word vs Photoshop) - another &quot;not native&quot; format isn&#x27;t quite as notable.<p>More importantly, though, is that <i>developers</i> hate PhoneGap and the experience it provides. I&#x27;d be interested to see the results of a survey where normal users are given a PhoneGap app and asked to point out what&#x27;s wrong with it. I suspect many would think it&#x27;s just fine. Not great, but fine. Similarly, if you asked anyone about the Slack desktop app I suspect they&#x27;d say it&#x27;s fine.