We've been using Iced for Totem [0], our cross-platform collaborative workspace app. Incidentally we took a similar route to what Discord is aiming to do, layering a rust engine with native UI (e.g. Swift on mobile) and it has been going well so far.
The one major concern I have with this framework, and with rust UI frameworks in general, is accessibility. That's something you get for free or nearly-free in other ecosystems but seems to require a fair bit of elbow grease here.
Still, I would wholeheartedly recommend Iced, with the one caveat that it hasn't yet hit 1.0 and version upgrades could be a little painful, and might bring big changes.
I'm working on Totem [0], feel free to give it a try! I try to post about it in the "What are you working on" thread monthly but haven't mustered the courage to do a "launch" yet.
It's cross-platform, Rust core with native UIs (Rust UI for Desktop, I'm using Iced [1]). I built it due to similar problems, and because I got tired of waiting on nvUltra [2].
Totem is meant to be more of a team/collaboration app in truth, but it turns out that realtime sync is also immensely helpful when working by yourself on multiple devices.
Everything is stored in SQLite and Markdown as well, but in a bit of an obscure location in a thin wrapper format (I might build in an escape hatch later on). The reason to do it this way is largely because allowing people to externally edit Markdown in a live sync context is tricky and I didn't want to make it super easy to screw yourself over.
P.S.: With consideration to the time that I am posting this...the iOS/iPadOS offering is currently restricted to a few countries. If you're not in those countries and are interested, let me know and I can add you to Testflight, or you can use the web version.
Totem is a collaborative workspace, featuring tasks, notes, and docs, built in Rust and available across desktop, web, and mobile (iOS to start) with seamless syncing and offline merge.
I built this because I think there's a lack of true realtime (CRDT) synced notes that aren't built on a heavy platform that take up 1GB+ RAM (Totem takes up ~100MB, and is also generally more responsive due to the local-first + ops-log approach).
Another thing I care about is keeping the underlying data portable: Totem is built on Markdown and SQLite as its core formats, so you get the convenience of cloud-based syncing without locking your data into a proprietary format.
I’m still looking for beta users/design partners before the initial launch. You can try it without creating an account here:
This is a bit of an unplanned post, so the sandbox template is a bit barebones (empty docs, doesn't feature a properly setup table). Nevertheless, I would love to hear your feedback if you try it out, especially if you use collaborative notes/docs today and have opinions on what they’re missing!
I'm continuing to work on Totem [0], an offline-first, local-first, team all-in-one workspace that features live collaboration, databases, and agentic workflows. The desktop apps are built completely in Rust (without Tauri or Electron) and are functional (with a few early users trying them out), while the iOS app uses the same core libraries but with a Swift frontend and is in TestFlight beta. I'm still waiting on Apple to approve the iOS release, among other things, before sharing more broadly.
The one major concern I have with this framework, and with rust UI frameworks in general, is accessibility. That's something you get for free or nearly-free in other ecosystems but seems to require a fair bit of elbow grease here.
Still, I would wholeheartedly recommend Iced, with the one caveat that it hasn't yet hit 1.0 and version upgrades could be a little painful, and might bring big changes.
[0] https://thinktotem.com
reply