Performance Optimisation

Overview

Optimise your Wails application for speed, memory efficiency, and responsiveness.

Frontend Optimisation

Bundle Size

vite.config.js

export default {
  build: {
    rollupOptions: {
      output: {
        manualChunks: {
          vendor: ['react', 'react-dom'],
        },
      },
    },
    minify: 'terser',
    terserOptions: {
      compress: {
        drop_console: true,
      },
    },
  },
}

Code Splitting

// Lazy load components
const Settings = lazy(() => import('./Settings'))

function App() {
  return (
    <Suspense fallback={<Loading />}>
      <Settings />
    </Suspense>
  )
}

Asset Optimisation

// Optimise images
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import imagemin from 'vite-plugin-imagemin'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    imagemin({
      gifsicle: { optimizationLevel: 3 },
      optipng: { optimizationLevel: 7 },
      svgo: { plugins: [{ removeViewBox: false }] },
    }),
  ],
})

Backend Optimisation

Efficient Bindings

// ❌ Bad: Return everything
func (s *Service) GetAllData() []Data {
    return s.db.FindAll() // Could be huge
}

// ✅ Good: Paginate
func (s *Service) GetData(page, size int) (*PagedData, error) {
    return s.db.FindPaged(page, size)
}

Caching

type CachedService struct {
    cache *lru.Cache
    ttl   time.Duration
}

func (s *CachedService) GetData(key string) (interface{}, error) {
    // Check cache
    if val, ok := s.cache.Get(key); ok {
        return val, nil
    }

    // Fetch and cache
    data, err := s.fetchData(key)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }

    s.cache.Add(key, data)
    return data, nil
}

Goroutines for Long Operations

func (s *Service) ProcessLargeFile(path string) error {
    // Process in background
    go func() {
        result, err := s.process(path)
        if err != nil {
            s.app.Event.Emit("process-error", err.Error())
            return
        }
        s.app.Event.Emit("process-complete", result)
    }()

    return nil
}

Memory Optimisation

Avoid Memory Leaks

// ❌ Bad: Goroutine leak
func (s *Service) StartPolling() {
    ticker := time.NewTicker(1 * time.Second)
    go func() {
        for range ticker.C {
            s.poll()
        }
    }()
    // ticker never stopped!
}

// ✅ Good: Proper cleanup
func (s *Service) StartPolling() {
    ticker := time.NewTicker(1 * time.Second)
    s.stopChan = make(chan bool)

    go func() {
        for {
            select {
            case <-ticker.C:
                s.poll()
            case <-s.stopChan:
                ticker.Stop()
                return
            }
        }
    }()
}

func (s *Service) StopPolling() {
    close(s.stopChan)
}

Pool Resources

var bufferPool = sync.Pool{
    New: func() interface{} {
        return new(bytes.Buffer)
    },
}

func processData(data []byte) []byte {
    buf := bufferPool.Get().(*bytes.Buffer)
    defer bufferPool.Put(buf)

    buf.Reset()
    buf.Write(data)
    // Process...
    return buf.Bytes()
}

Event Optimisation

Debounce Events

// Debounce frequent events
let debounceTimer
function handleInput(value) {
    clearTimeout(debounceTimer)
    debounceTimer = setTimeout(() => {
        UpdateData(value)
    }, 300)
}

Batch Updates

type BatchProcessor struct {
    items []Item
    mu    sync.Mutex
    timer *time.Timer
}

func (b *BatchProcessor) Add(item Item) {
    b.mu.Lock()
    defer b.mu.Unlock()

    b.items = append(b.items, item)

    if b.timer == nil {
        b.timer = time.AfterFunc(100*time.Millisecond, b.flush)
    }
}

func (b *BatchProcessor) flush() {
    b.mu.Lock()
    items := b.items
    b.items = nil
    b.timer = nil
    b.mu.Unlock()

    // Process batch
    processBatch(items)
}

Build Optimisation

Binary Size

wails3 build itself has no -ldflags flag — the shipped Taskfile already passes -ldflags="-s -w" to go build. To further shrink the binary, edit the build task or call go build directly:

# Strip debug symbols and trim file paths
go build -ldflags="-s -w" -trimpath -o bin/myapp

Compilation Speed

# Use build cache
go build -buildmode=default

# Parallel compilation
go build -p 8

Profiling

CPU Profiling

import "runtime/pprof"

func profileCPU() {
    f, _ := os.Create("cpu.prof")
    defer f.Close()

    pprof.StartCPUProfile(f)
    defer pprof.StopCPUProfile()

    // Code to profile
}

Memory Profiling

import "runtime/pprof"

func profileMemory() {
    f, _ := os.Create("mem.prof")
    defer f.Close()

    runtime.GC()
    pprof.WriteHeapProfile(f)
}

Analyse Profiles

# View CPU profile
go tool pprof cpu.prof

# View memory profile
go tool pprof mem.prof

# Web interface
go tool pprof -http=:8080 cpu.prof

Best Practices

✅ Do

• Profile before optimising
• Cache expensive operations
• Use pagination for large datasets
• Debounce frequent events
• Pool resources
• Clean up goroutines
• Optimise bundle size
• Use lazy loading

❌ Don’t

• Don’t optimise prematurely
• Don’t ignore memory leaks
• Don’t block the main thread
• Don’t return huge datasets
• Don’t skip profiling
• Don’t forget cleanup

Performance Checklist

• Frontend bundle optimised
• Images compressed
• Code splitting implemented
• Backend methods paginated
• Caching implemented
• Goroutines cleaned up
• Events debounced
• Binary size optimised
• Profiling done
• Memory leaks fixed

Next Steps

• Architecture - Application architecture patterns
• Testing - Test your application
• Building - Build optimised binaries