Microsoft Teams: new app is 2x faster and uses 50% less memory

Microsoft released a public preview of the new Microsoft Teams app for Windows today. The new application is a complete rewrite of Microsoft Teams and Microsoft claims that it is up to 2x faster than the old and uses up to 50% less memory and 70% storage when compared to the old application.

The old Microsoft Teams application was built on Electron, a massive framework that gives apps a lot of capabilities, including cross-platform support. It comes at a cost, as Electron is not exactly resource-friendly.

Microsoft explains that it moved from Electron to WebView2, from Angular to React, and to using Fluent UE collection in the new Teams application.

An article on Microsoft's Tech Community website offers details on the move: "Key decisions made included participating and standardizing on the Fluent UI collection of UX controls, transitioning from Angular to React for building user interfaces, moving data processing out of the main thread to a client data layer worker, and lastly, transitioning from Electron to leverage WebView2 as the host."

There, Microsoft explains some of the development goals of the transition, which include performance optimizations, security hardening, an improved video pipeline and other goals.

Microsoft ran several benchmarks and claims the following performance stats of the new Teams application when compared to the old:

• The application launches up to 2X faster
• The joining of meetings is up to 2X faster
• Switching channels and chats is up to 1.7X faster
• It consumes up to 50% less memory
• It consumes up to 70% less disk space

Microsoft published a video on the official Microsoft 365 website and on YouTube. The video on the Teams website shows how the old and new Teams application do in regards to performance. The video on YouTube is by Jeff Teper, President of Collaborative Apps & Platforms, and it provides more details on the new Microsoft Teams application.

The new Microsoft Teams is "faster, simpler, more flexible, and smarter", according to Microsoft.

Simpler refers to design adjustments that Microsoft made to various areas of Teams, including notifications, search, message management and channel organization. The blog post Designing the new era of Teams offers a deep dive into the design changes that went into the new Microsoft Teams application.

The old Microsoft Teams application has a rating of 2.7 out of 5 on the Microsoft Store. If the new Microsoft Teams proves to be that much better, its rating is likely improving in the future.

How to get the preview of Microsoft Teams

The preview release of the new Microsoft Teams is available for Windows only at the time. Microsoft promises that it will release the new application for Mac later this year.

The option to try the new Teams app should be displayed as a "Try the new Teams" toggle, according to Microsoft. Teams users may use it to switch between the classic and new version of Teams. Teams users who do not see the toggle should try signing out and in again, or contacting their IT administrator for guidance.

Additional information on the new Teams is available here. There, Microsoft highlights some of the features that it is still working on, including support for government clouds, advanced calling and meeting features and more.

• Mac, VDI, EDU, and web platforms
• Government clouds (GCC, GCC-High, DoD)
• Advanced calling features, such as call queues and reverse number lookup
• Advanced meeting features, such as breakout rooms and 7×7 video
• Teams and channel creation, cross-posting, and channel announcements
• Search in chats and channels
• Files app, 3rd party apps, and Line of Business (LOB) apps

Microsoft plans to roll out the stable version of the new Teams later in 2023.

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