I don't think that's true. You can achieve a lot with just react, css, node and the electron APIs. With enough effort and attention to detail you can make an app look and feel native with css (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIRXVGVPzn8), V8 is not /that/ slow, and you have the advantage of using multiple node processes inside electron to offload work. And it's cross platform. Yes, the built apps might end up being big, but that's a trade off I'm willing to take in favor of developing cross platforms apps with a modern and familiar web stack.