Do Electron Apps Work Offline?

It depends on where the app's code and data live - Electron itself is perfectly happy offline; the question is what the app inside it needs.

The two kinds of Electron app

Bundled apps ship their UI code inside the installer. VS Code is the canonical example: editor, syntax highlighting, your files - all local, all fully functional in airplane mode. Only the cloud-touching features (extensions marketplace, sync) go quiet.

Wrapped apps load a live website inside the Electron shell. Many popular apps work this way, and so do apps built with wrapper platforms like Deskifier. These need connectivity for the same reason a browser tab does: the app IS the live site. Offline, the shell still launches, but the content can't load until the network returns.

Why wrapping is still the right call for most products

If your product is a SaaS, its heart is server-side anyway - a bundled UI without a backend is a login screen that can't log in. Loading the live site buys you something bundling can't: every deploy updates every user instantly, no release cycle, no version skew. That trade is why Slack-style apps outnumber VS Code-style apps.

Softening the offline edge

Wrapped apps can still be graceful about it: cache assets with a service worker (works inside Electron's Chromium just like Chrome), keep recent data in localStorage or IndexedDB, use the shell's filesystem access for heavier local caching, and show a branded "reconnecting" state instead of a browser error. The 12 things web apps can't do covers where native storage helps.

The short answer

• VS Code-style bundled apps: yes, offline by design.
• Wrapped web apps (most SaaS desktop apps): they need the network like a browser does, and can be engineered to degrade gracefully.

If you're deciding for your own product: match it to your web app. If your site is useless offline, your desktop app will be too - and no framework choice changes that.