[Feature Request]: Option to use Sparkle for Electron Updating

[pateljoel]

Preflight Checklist

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines for this project.
• I agree to follow the Code of Conduct that this project adheres to.
• I have searched the issue tracker for a feature request that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Problem Description

It seems the current state of Electron updaters for private use (other than update.electronjs.org) are extremely out of date, even after the Electron team migrated away from Sparkle to Squirrel and called it "abandoned"

Nuts – Has not been supported or actively maintained since 2017 being the last commit even though it looks like the easiest option.

Hazel – Uses the old ZEIT Now service (Now Vercel) and doesn't support Apple Silicon builds, it all seems broken and out of date.

electron-release-server – Is far too complex and complicated for hosting an update server and does not use GitHub releases and requires a database.

Nucleus – The same thing as electron-release-server and not as simple to use as Hazel, plus looks very specific to Atlasssian's needs.

Most of these updaters either are too complex, out of date, are not maintained and is just too broken to use as the server hangs waiting for the file to download as I reported in Hazel.

Proposed Solution

For both Mac and Windows another option is to use Sparkle & WinSparkle which has been the standard updater for Mac and even supports Windows.

I would like this to be an option, to use either Squirrel or Sparkle as the updater for my electron app, such that I don't need a dedicated server like Hazel, Nuts, Nucleus etc.

With Sparkle I only need an S3 bucket and an RSS feed.

Alternatives Considered

Writing YAEU (Yet Another Electron Updater) Or Manual Zip File.

Additional Information

Since the Electron Team called Sparkle "abandoned" it has now been maintained by the Sparkle Team, clearly not abandoned and in use with many apps.

It is worth considering using Sparkle again for Electron apps to make updating electron app easier than the now outdated solutions like Hazel, Nuts, Nucleus etc.

[ccorcos]

1. I don't like how Squirrel requires running your own server. That just seems unnecessary.
2. Electron Builder has a custom auto-updater, but it seems quite bloated.

I'm currently looking for a simple solution for auto-updating!

[mrleblanc101]

All this work with Electron 11 to make it native on Apple Silicon, just so that developer using AutoUpdate rely on an outdated Squirrel framework which is not Apple Silicon compatible...
This make no sense, if this is the native way to update app, it should support Apple Silicon like the rest of the framework but it hasn't been updated since 2017.
I 100% agree that Electron should switch to Sparkle. It recently got an almost complete rewrite with version 3 which was release not long ago and is cross-platform.