Native, not a browser
macOS calls Cocoa and Metal, Windows calls Win32 and Direct3D 11, Linux calls XCB and Vulkan from the system's own libraries. An application links system frameworks and the Go runtime, nothing else.
macOS · Windows · Linux
Native desktop applications, written in Go.
Viva draws windows, text and components straight through each operating system's own APIs and the GPU. There is no WebView, no browser engine and no bundled runtime, and an idle application does no work at all.
- stripped executable
- 1.6 MiB
- GPU submissions while idle
- 0
- idle CPU
- 0.0%
This is the real component
The control below is the production Go component compiled to WebAssembly, not an HTML imitation. The browser build draws with Canvas2D; native builds use Metal, Direct3D 11 or Vulkan.
What Viva is built around
Idle means idle
An unchanged frame does no layout, rebuilds no scene and submits nothing to the GPU. There are no background timers or polling loops by default.
Components you own
viva add copies a component's Go source into your project. There is no component registry and no stylesheet parser at runtime: a component is ordinary Go that you are free to edit.
Testable without a window
A headless driver runs the real painter, input router and focus rules from explicit calls and, on macOS, can capture the pixels a window would show, so tests need no desktop session.
One API, three native backends
Cocoa and Metal on macOS, Win32 and Direct3D 11 on Windows, and X11 and Vulkan on Linux. An application links the system frameworks and the Go runtime, nothing else.
Desktop only
Viva targets macOS, Windows and Linux. Mobile is out of scope, so desktop APIs are never weakened to keep a mobile door open.
Measured, reproducibly
Every number is quoted from a benchmark report in the repository, on the machine and build named there — you can rerun them yourself.
- Stripped executable
- 1.6 MiB1,697,506 bytes, a minimal macOS window with a Metal pipeline (M0, Apple silicon).
- GPU submissions while idle
- 0After the first present an unchanged window submits nothing, and settled CPU reads 0.0% (M0).
- Retained scene, 10,000 nodes
- 2.0 ns · 12.4 nsDraining an unchanged scene, then updating one node. Both take zero allocations (M1).
- The component showcase
- 1.9 MiB1,972,834 bytes stripped: the native showcase application with its previews and icons (Apple M2 Pro).
Where it runs today
macOS
Cocoa · Metal · CoreText
Native text input with Chinese IME composition, accessibility, status items, and packaging to .app, .zip and .dmg.
Windows
Win32 · Direct3D 11 · DirectWrite
Native windows, Direct3D rendering, system text and packaged amd64 and arm64 builds.
Linux
X11 · Vulkan · Pango/Cairo
X11 through system XCB and Vulkan libraries, with Pango/Cairo text and packaged builds.