Electron (formerly Atom Shell) is a framework created by GitHub that lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Electron is based upon Node.js and Chromium.
Electron (formerly Atom Shell) project was originally started by Cheng Zhao, one of the authors of NW.js (formerly known as node-WebKit), another Node.js-based platform for building desktop applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Cheng Zhao was hired by GitHub and began work on the framework on or about April 11th, 2013. On the 17th of April, 2015, with the release of version 0.24 the framework was renamed from Atom Shell to Electron.
One of the differences between Electron and NW.js frameworks is that the entry point for the app is actual JavaScript instead of an HTML page. This makes Electron more suitable for testing with PhantomJS, for instance.
Another difference is that the build process is also simpler for Electron using electron-builder, electron-forge and electron-packager. Since Electron uses libchromiumcontent to access Chromium's Content API, it's no longer required to obtain a copy of the Chromium source code. On that same note, the integration with Chromium is much more loosely coupled than in case of NW.js (which requires Chromium to be patched and maintained separately by the NW.js developers).
Probably, the most popular application built on top of Electron is a hackable text editor called Atom (also from GitHub). But there are some other interesting projects like Vivaldi Web browser, Mapbox Studio, an email client from Nylas, Slack desktop application, Pixate, Fireball game editor, Visual Studio Code, an SQL editor called Wagon, Mac app that runs Docker containers called Kitematic.
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