[greenhouse_gas]

The big problem is that out of the 5 technologies you mentioned,only two are cross-platform, and only one builds an exe (yet).

Oh, and that one is practically designed around a hybrid C++, so if you don't like C++ (last time I tried C++ with mingw on Windows I had a horrible time installing libraries), you're out of choices.

[pjmlp]

XAML, QML, JavaFX, Android (since version 5), Cocoa all build exes, so I don't know which single one you mean.

QML and JavaFX are cross-platform, XAML is cross platform via Avalonia or Xamarin.Forms.

Anyone using C++ on Windows for GUI development should use Visual C++, C++ Builder or the gcc toolchain integrated in the Qt installer.

[oblio]

JavaFX doesn't run on iOS. While your Electron app will be tweaked to make a Cordova app that runs on iOS.

Avalonia is at beta level at best, would you bet your startup on it? Xamarin.Forms ok, but XAML is not 100% the same everywhere, anyway. WPF is not Xamarin.Forms.

[pjmlp]

JavaFX surely runs on iOS, just not for the "I want everything for free" crowd.

http://gluonhq.com/products/mobile/

> XAML is not 100% the same everywhere, anyway.

Hence XAML Standard,

https://github.com/Microsoft/xaml-standard

[s73v3r_]

"While your Electron app will be tweaked to make a Cordova app that runs on iOS."

And be incredibly shitty.

If you care about your users and their experience, you won't write apps in JS to begin with.

[pjmlp]

My point of view is that if it is to be done with the Web stack, then by all means it should be delivered to whatever browser the user likes to use on their platform.

Anything else should take advantage of the native UI/UX tooling.

[realharo]

>last time I tried C++ with mingw on Windows I had a horrible time installing libraries

msys2 (http://www.msys2.org/) solves package management quite nicely, at least for the more popular libraries and tools.