WhatsApp · Telegram · Gmail · Slack · Discord · and more
A lightweight, native alternative to Rambox, Franz, and Ferdi — built with Rust for maximum performance.
| Rambox / Franz | BigBox | |
|---|---|---|
| RAM usage | 800MB+ (Electron) | ~150MB (native WebKit) |
| Startup time | 5-10s | <2s |
| Binary size | 200MB+ | ~15MB |
| Framework | Electron (Chromium) | Tauri v2 (Rust + native WebView) |
| License | Freemium / Proprietary | GPL-3.0 (fully open source) |
BigBox uses your system's native WebView engine instead of bundling an entire Chromium browser. The result: 5× less RAM, instant startup, and a tiny footprint.
- 🚀 Instant launch — Native Rust backend, no Electron overhead
- 🔒 Isolated sessions — Each service has its own cookies, storage, and login
- 🔔 Unread badges — Real-time notification counters on sidebar icons
- 🔇 Global mute — Silence all services with one click
- 🖱️ Drag & drop reorder — Arrange your services the way you want
- ➕ Add/remove services — Customize your workspace at runtime
- 📋 Native context menu — Right-click to reload, mark as read, or remove
- ⚡ Smart preload — Background warming of services for instant switching
- 🔔 Auto-granted notifications — No repeated permission prompts
- 🐧 Wayland-native — First-class support for modern Linux desktops
| Service | Notifications | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ✅ | Full Web experience | |
| Telegram | ✅ | Web K client |
| Gmail | ✅ | Full Gmail interface |
| Slack | ✅ | Workspace app |
| Discord | ✅ | Full Discord client |
| Google Calendar | — | |
| Google Drive | — | |
| Notion | — | |
| GitHub | — | |
| YouTube | — | |
| Spotify | — | Web player |
| Trello | — |
Any web service can be added — BigBox is not limited to this list.
Download the .deb package from Releases:
sudo dpkg -i bigbox_0.1.0_amd64.debBuild from source:
# Install dependencies (build + GStreamer codecs for in-chat video playback)
sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev \
gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good \
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-libav xdg-utils
# Install Tauri CLI
cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2"
# Build
cargo tauri buildDownload the .pkg.tar.zst package from Releases:
sudo pacman -U bigbox-0.1.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zstBuild from source (AUR-style):
# Clone and build using the included PKGBUILD
git clone https://github.com/podheitor/BigBox.git
cd BigBox
makepkg -siDownload the .msi installer from Releases and run it.
git clone https://github.com/podheitor/BigBox.git
cd BigBox
cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2"
cargo tauri buildBigBox/
├── src-tauri/ # Rust backend (Tauri v2)
│ ├── src/
│ │ ├── lib.rs # App setup, GTK layout, window events
│ │ ├── commands.rs # IPC commands, WebView management
│ │ ├── config.rs # Persistent TOML configuration
│ │ └── services.rs # Service catalog (compiled-in JSON)
│ └── tauri.conf.json
├── frontend/ # Shell UI (vanilla HTML/CSS/JS)
│ ├── index.html
│ ├── style.css
│ └── app.js
└── data/
└── services.json # Built-in service definitions
Tech stack:
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Backend | Rust + Tauri v2 |
| Frontend | Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS (zero dependencies) |
| Linux WebView | WebKit2GTK 4.1 |
| Windows WebView | Edge WebView2 |
| macOS WebView | WKWebView |
- 🤖 AI-powered auto-chat (LLM integration for auto-replies)
- 📢 Mass messaging / broadcast campaigns
- 🔊 Per-service notification sounds
- ⌨️ Keyboard shortcuts
- 🍎 macOS build
- 📦 Flatpak / Snap packages
- 🔲 System tray with unread count
See PLAN.md for the full development plan.
BigBox is free and open source. If you find it useful, consider supporting development:
Subscribe and join to support free/open-source projects:
Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request.
- Fork the repo
- Create a feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature) - Commit your changes (
git commit -m 'Add amazing feature') - Push to the branch (
git push origin feature/amazing-feature) - Open a Pull Request
GPL-3.0-or-later — © 2025 Heitor Faria
Free software. Use it, modify it, distribute it.