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Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

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Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

#1

Post by jventura »

I have this side project that has been stuck for quite some time, because I can't seem to make up my mind if I should go with a desktop or a web application. Is any single developer or small team making a living of desktop apps, and are they still relevant?

My side project is a kind-of productivity application, and my target users are not really technical people and will probably have one computer, but as I'm a "lonely" developer (working alone) I have to think about the future, and so I have to try to make the right choice on this..

It would be great to hear both successful and unsuccessful experiences made by single or small teams of developers..

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

#2

Post by partisan »

This type of analysis paralysis will kill your project.

> I have to think about the future, and so I have to try to make the right choice on this..

You don't have to make the right choice right now. For now, focus on getting something complete so that you can prove the idea out.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

#4

Post by ownedthx »

We have a desktop application that uses QtWebkit for the UI.

We had no choice technically-we need to use audio APIs on Win/Mac to get our job done.

Based on my experience, I would not recommend building a desktop app unless there is a technical reason to do so.

Data storage, building installers, signing your app for target OS's, and dealing with auto-update are all technical problems that I'd prefer to avoid if I could. Building cross-platform code is also a pain and, while totally doable, will slow down a team that is not familiar with it, I think.

If I really needed to build a desktop app in the future, I'd investigate building building a headless app that hosts a websocket, and use the user's browser to connect to a localhost websocket to communicate with it. (i.e., a technical choice freeing my from Qt)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

#6

Post by longzheng »

I've published a desktop Windows app before with a freemium strategy. It was developed by a team of 3 after hours.

We didn't make a living out of it because we wanted to keep it as a hobby project but it paid out well enough to be considered a small business.

I don't have any advice on whether your app should be a desktop or web, it all depends on what is the app, who your users are, where are your users using it, what are your competitors, what is easier to develop, etc.

All I can say is that desktop apps can still be profitable in recent years, but I can't say it will be profitable for your project.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

#7

Post by dejv »

I make living off desktop app in construction industry. The app is 21 years old and is still written in Delphi 5. I still actively maintaining it and it runs fairly well on modern Windows OSes, but there were some low level problems in recent years.

We are team of two: I am sole developer and there is another person doing sales, support, training and all the rest of stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

#8

Post by aaronsnoswell »

ownedthx wrote: post #4

We have a desktop application that uses QtWebkit for the UI. We had no choice technically-we need to use audio APIs on Win/Mac to get our job done. Based on my experience, I would not recommend building a desktop app unless there is a technical reason to do so. Data storage, building installers, signing your app for target OS's, and dealing with auto-update are all technical problems that I'd prefer to avoid if I cou…

+1 for using a wrapped-web stack approach. We've recently taken another look at the Electron/NodeJS/WebSocket stack - it allows you to build a native app using web technologies, even calling native (WinAPI) calls. This space has really come a long way recently.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living off of desktop applications?

#9

Post by i336_ »

From a desktop-application standpoint, the Web provides something very useful: easy upgrading. Like, you go to a URL, and if you aren't seeing the latest production revision of the site code, that's a bug.

IMO, if you think you'll ever have edge cases where users might struggle to stay connected to the Web, think about doing a desktop app - but even then, consider using eg Electron/QTWebKit/similar so you can continue to use HTML.

The only situation I would shy away from using the HTML/CSS/JS approach with new general-purpose PC-centric applications is supporting older hardware - I like my apps to remain snappy, but sadly even Webkit tends to lag (generally speaking) on anything older than an i3 or so.

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