Is there a reason why bw.exe is over 100MB on Windows?
@jeffesjefe Welcome to the forum!
Probably…
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Because it’s based on a framework called Electron that allows Bitwarden to be easily ported to different platforms. Here’s some info (or you can do better searches):
edited:
I’m not sure if the CLI is based on Electron — do you believe it is?
No, sorry, I thought this was a desktop question.
Note and for transparency: As the tag shows “app:cli”, I added “CLI:” to the title to make that part more clear, after I saw @Neuron5569’s post… @jeffesjefe please confirm, if you do mean the CLI or not.
The desktop app executable is Bitwarden.exe, the CLI is bw.exe. So it’s the CLI (in all likelihood).
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Some things are so simple that you (I) don’t see them.
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I am not using the CLI anymore, but here’s a possible explanation for this curiosity. bw.exe appears to be using Node.js (Node.js® is a free, open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that lets developers create servers, web apps, command line tools, and scripts). This makes sense because the desktop app probably also uses Node.js; some code can be shared this way.
Since bw.exe is distributed as a single file, it most likely has the entire runtime libraries, including nodejs.exe, embedded in that single file. Nodejs.exe alone is 60MB+(?) in size.
TL;DR: Shared code and reliable single-file distribution are probably the reasons.
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Yes, the CLI. Thanks for helping to clarify.
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Just as a follow up. I use the CLI so I can automate some processes using PowerShell. It is a hard pill to swallow that I need a 100+MB file tagging along to do that. I probably did this in the day because the API was lacking something I needed to do. Does anyone know if the API is now 100% on parity with the CLI?