Discord has quietly built a replacement for its own desktop app, and the difference is embarrassing for the old one. In a 15-second clip posted on X by co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy, the new client — code-named Discord Phoenix — finished loading its friends list before the current Electron version had cleared its loading screen.
The video, which had 2.3 million views at the time of writing, was shot on two Lenovo ThinkPads running Windows 11. Discord employees confirmed both apps were launched from a cold start, and Vishnevskiy said the new build was using 290.2MB of RAM in Task Manager with two accounts signed in at the same time.
Discord Rust client vs Electron: boot time and RAM
Frame-by-frame, the clip is a short history of what desktop apps got wrong. The Electron app is opened first and sits on an empty dark window for around three seconds, then shows a tip reading "In the ancient days, Discord started as a browser-only app." The joke writes itself: the app still ships a full browser engine today.
The Rust version is double-clicked about a second and a half later and still reaches its interface first. On X, users asked whether it had simply popped out of the system tray. Coral, who leads audio and video at Discord, replied that both were cold starts, and Travis, who filmed the clip, noted that a tray launch would mean the friends list was already loaded.
- Cold start: the current client shows a blank dark window for about three seconds before its loading screen
- The Rust build's window fades in within a second of being double-clicked, roughly 1.5 seconds after the Electron app
- By the time the Electron app shows its interface, about five seconds in, the Rust client already has the friends list loaded
- Discord says the new architecture bootstraps fast enough that the "Starting" screen is no longer needed
- Updates are handled in the background; Discord confirmed it does not route them through the Microsoft Store or Windows Update Orchestration Platform
