I use VSCode, Slack, and Discord every day (and some other Electron apps). The results are great and better than anything I've seen in the xplat space where there are always trade-offs.
Is Electron better than most cross platform alternatives? Yes. Is Electron better than platform's native tooklit? No. Electron apps are easily recognizable because they completely stand out from the platform apps (not in a good way). And there are other concerns that are addressed in the numerous electron threads on HN so I won't list them here.
i think that is part of GP's point, if Electron is the best we can do, then thats not a great sign. im a regular discord user and used to heavily use VSC, but i had to abandon it, for my uses it was far too heavy for what it was.
There are definitely trade-offs with Electron. Higher CPU, RAM and battery usage compared to native apps, and on macOS at least, the loss of features which native controls get for free.
I use VSCode, Slack, and Discord every day (and some other Electron apps). The results are great and better than anything I've seen in the xplat space where there are always trade-offs.