Size & performance

How big tinyclient is next to the official apps, what it uses while it runs, and how each number was taken.

App size on disk

macOS, measured 2026-10-14 with `du -sh` on each `.app` as installed by its vendor’s official macOS installer.
App	Size on disk
Microsoft Teams	1.1 GB
Signal	625 MB
Slack	554 MB
Discord	481 MB
Telegram	346 MB
The five together	about 3.1 GB
tinyclient, all five networks	55 MB

Method: install each app from its vendor’s official macOS installer, then run du -sh on the .app bundle. Slack and Telegram ship universal binaries (Apple silicon and Intel in one app); tinyclient’s figure is its Apple silicon build, tinyclient.app from the release zip. The Apple silicon Slack disk image measured the same day is 323 MB; the 554 MB row is the universal build.

Memory while running

One reading, all six signed in with a window open, on this Mac: Apple M3 Pro, 18 GB of RAM, macOS 26.7.1 (25G241), 14 October 2026. tinyclient is 0.2.0, up 21 minutes. Slack and Discord had been open about 40 minutes. Teams had been up 6 hours, Signal 11 hours. During the CPU minute Teams used 10% of a core, so that app was not idle.

Physical footprint is the sum of `phys_footprint` from `footprint`, which is the number Activity Monitor calls Memory. Resident is the sum of `ps -o rss`. CPU is the sum of CPU time over the next 60 seconds, as a percent of one core.
App	Processes	Footprint	Resident	CPU
Microsoft Teams	14	1,775 MB	374 MB	10%
Slack 4.52.178	7	824 MB	370 MB	0.4%
Discord 0.0.415	7	627 MB	370 MB	3.7%
Signal 8.30.0	6	612 MB	225 MB	4.6%
Telegram 13.0	1	129 MB	90 MB	0.4%
The five together	35	3.9 GB	1.4 GB	19%
tinyclient 0.2.0, all five networks	2	91 MB	57 MB	0.2%

Of tinyclient’s 91 MB, the window was 69 MB and chatd was 22 MB. Teams’ footprint is one WebView renderer at 1,196 MB plus helpers. Most of Teams, Slack, Signal and Discord is compressed: 1,649 MB, 693 MB, 524 MB and 493 MB. The Teams audio driver is in the resident column and not in the footprint, because footprint could not read it. An earlier reading the same evening, of tinyclient 0.1.0, was 42 MB resident. 0.2.0 is the latest release, and it is the build in this table.

Four programs, each only when needed

`chatd` signed in to Discord and the window, measured on macOS on 2026-10-13. `mediad` in an end-to-end encrypted call against a local test voice server (`crates/mediad/tests/voice.rs`).
Process	Runs	Measured	Budget
`chatd`	Always, in the background	10 MB RSS	20 MB idle on Discord, Slack and Teams
`tinyclient`	While the window is open	64 MB RSS	80 MB footprint with a list on screen
`mediad`	During a call only	< 40 MB RSS	40 MB in a voice call; asserted by a test
`tinyclient-login`	During a sign-in only	n/a	Exits with the sign-in

The target for the whole product, idle and signed in to four networks, is 150 MB. Voice runs in mediad, which starts when a call connects and exits when it ends, so no audio code is loaded the rest of the time. The sign-in window is its own process and exits when you are in.

Budgets

Every feature has a memory, speed and idle-CPU budget, measured from outside the process. The full list and how each is measured: 07-budgets-and-risk.md. Binary sizes per program are on Architecture.

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