HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
mozilla
positron
Languages & Compilers2016–2025
mozilla / positron · Archived

positron

a experimental, Electron-compatible runtime on top of Gecko

Languages & CompilersMobile & Desktop
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
25Distinct people
29Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
574GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

a experimental, Electron-compatible runtime on top of Gecko

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year29 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2016-04-10 16:43:22 UTC to 2025-10-12 08:12:50 UTC.

02462016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 1 submissions, 4 comments20162017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC514
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
Positron: Electron-compatible runtime on top of Gecko This project is an Electron-compatible app shell for creating desktop apps based on Gecko, the rendering engine used in Firefox. Current status As noted in the blog post Positron Discontinued, this project has been discontinued. The source remains available, and you're welcome to reuse it. How to download the source To clone Positron and its submodules: git clone --recursive https://github.com/mozilla/positron.git How to build Before building please make sure you have the prerequisites for building Firefox as documented here. Build Command: MOZCONFIG=positron/config/mozconfig ./mach build How to run To run an app on Positron, invoke ./mach run with the path to the app's directory. For example, to run a sample app: ./mach run positron/test/hello-world You can also npm link the build directory and then run the app via the positron command: (cd obj-x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0/dist/; npm link) # Build dir name will vary. positron positron/test/hello-world How to test To start an Electron test run: (cd positron/electron/spec; npm install) # You only have to do this the first time. ./mach run positron/electron/spec Note: these tests don't yet run.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

29 sources
heavyset_go·Mar 26, 2022
Qt's QML is both declarative and reactive, and even lets you program in JavaScript or TypeScript. It also uses a tiny amount of memory and it's really fast. It's the closest thing to the React and Electron model while still being fast and efficient. There are some suggestions, on Mozilla's suggestion platform Mozilla Connect, for turning Gecko into something like Electron[1][2]. In the past, Mozilla ran the Positron project, which was an Electron-like library on Gecko[3]. [1] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/create-an-alternative-t... [2] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-embed-gecko-... [3] https://github.com/mozilla/positron
In Ask HN: Why aren't there any real alternatives to Electron?
jd3·Aug 30, 2021
I assume they meant XULRunner[0], which was Mozilla's spiritual predecessor to Electron. Some abandoned modern alternatives included Chromeless[1], Positron[2][3] and qbrt[4][5]. While technically possible using Firefox's XULRunner functionality (`firefox --app app.ini` — mostly undocumented, potentially unsupported in the future), as far as I can tell, Mozilla has abandoned the Electron approach for XUL/Gecko bundling, which is a shame since Firefox itself is basically just an implementation on top of the Gecko XUL runtime. > "[Firefox] is distributed as the combination of a Gecko XUL runtime — libxul, other shared libraries, and non-browser-specific resources like those in toolkit/ — plus a Firefox XUL application — mostly just the files in Contents/Resources/browser/, plus the 'firefox' stub executable that loads Gecko and points it at
Read the rest
a XUL application" [6] On Android, there is also Geckoview[7][8] for embedding gecko. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XULRunner [1]: https://github.com/mozilla/chromeless [2]: https://github.com/mozilla/positron [3]: http://web.archive.org/web/20210227132731/https://mykzilla.o... [4]: https://github.com/mozilla/qbrt [5]: http://web.archive.org/web/20210601133844/https://mykzilla.o... [6]: http://web.archive.org/web/20210227132731/https://mykzilla.o... [7]: https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview [8]: https://mozilla.github.io/geckoview/
In Building a Desktop Application for Datasette
jd3·May 12, 2021
Fair enough. Sorry, I should have clarified a bit more — I'm writing a cross-platform desktop application that has a preact[0] frontend (+ a Go backend) using `firefox --app application.ini`. I have been experimenting with performant lists (which is why I brought up the XUL tree — it's currently central to the interface, though not the final implementation for sure) — I'm currently only using the XUL window/menubar elements in order to populate the native macOS menubar. I am a fullstack web dev in my day job, so my goal here is to write a fast, easily extendable UI that I can quickly iterate upon using modern html/js/css/etc. I love gecko and used to write XUL add-ons many years ago, so I'm already familiar with JS code modules, XPCOM, XUL, the internal browser architecture etc. Basically, I'm now using XULRunner (`firefox --app applicati
Read the rest
on.ini` as previously mentioned — will eventually be stubbed into a native macOS .app/OS program) as a replacement for Electron / Chromium Embedded Framework[1]. I'm basically doing the same thing as Positron[2]/qbrt[3]. [0]: https://preactjs.com/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework [2]: https://github.com/mozilla/positron [3]: https://github.com/mozilla/qbrt
In Google Docs will now use canvas based rendering
commoner·Feb 5, 2019
Originally, there was XULRunner, which was used in applications including ChatZilla, Google AdWords Editor, Komodo Edit, Pencil, Songbird, and Zotero. XULRunner has been discontinued. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Mozilla/XUL... Mozilla briefly developed Positron, which was an Electron-compatible app shell that used Gecko instead of Chromium/Node.js/V8. Positron has also been discontinued. https://github.com/mozilla/positron The developer who was working on Positron went on to develop qbrt, which is a CLI interface to a Gecko app runtime. The project is unstable, and the last commit date is Jun 30, 2018. https://github.com/mozilla/qbrt Another Mozilla developer has a project called servoshell, which is an embeddable version of Servo. It's described as work-in-progress, and the last commit date is Jan 7, 2018. https://gi
Read the rest
thub.com/paulrouget/servoshell I'm afraid this is it for now, since embedding Gecko is no longer unsupported by Mozilla. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Gecko/Embed... Hopefully, Mozilla will continue working on embeddable versions of desktop Gecko after they release the necessary improvements in Firefox.
In A web browser reference implementation using Mozilla Android Components

Showing the 15 most recent of 29 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.