When we started building Wallspace, we had a choice: go the quick route with Electron, or invest the time to build natively in Swift. We chose Swift, and it's made all the difference.
The problem with non-native wallpaper apps
Most live wallpaper apps on macOS are built on Electron or similar web-based frameworks. They work, but they come with trade-offs: higher memory usage, more CPU overhead, and a noticeable impact on battery life. When you're running a wallpaper app 24/7, those trade-offs add up fast.
What Swift gives us
- Under 2% CPU usage during wallpaper playback on Apple Silicon
- ~30MB memory footprint compared to 150MB+ for Electron-based alternatives
- Direct access to macOS APIs for smooth video rendering and display management
- Instant launch -- the app opens in under a second
Battery impact
We've optimized Wallspace to automatically pause playback when your Mac is on battery power or when a fullscreen app is in focus. This means live wallpapers have near-zero impact on battery life during real-world usage.
Building natively takes more effort, but for an app that runs in the background all day, we believe it's the only responsible approach.