Building a Gmail-first email client

Going direct to Gmail is a product decision, not just an infrastructure decision. Shortwave is trying to make email feel like chat, with live delivery, typing indicators, custom thread rendering, and tight client server coordination. A middle layer like Nylas is most valuable when a company needs one API across many providers. Shortwave instead optimized for deep control over one provider, Gmail, while letting Google keep spam filtering and deliverability.

• Shortwave sits on top of a user’s Gmail or Google Workspace account and syncs data back and forth, so the product can act like a new front end for the same mailbox. That makes Gmail itself the system of record, and makes direct API access more useful than a generalized abstraction layer.
  1 sacra 2 sacra
• The product features that matter most here are server heavy. Shortwave says it imports and stores years of mail, converts messy HTML emails into its own rich text format, and uses a side channel for instant teammate messaging while still sending through Gmail in the background. That kind of workflow is easier when the app owns the full sync and rendering path.
  1 sacra
• Nylas solves a different problem. Its pitch is one API for Gmail, Outlook, Exchange, IMAP, and many other providers, plus webhooks and bi directional sync. That is ideal for SaaS tools that need broad inbox coverage fast. It is less aligned with a Gmail first client whose edge comes from custom behavior inside one mailbox model.
  3 nylas 4 google

This points toward a split market. Infrastructure layers like Nylas win when software teams need coverage across many communications systems. Apps like Shortwave win when they use one underlying system as raw material and build a much better user experience on top. As Shortwave expands to Outlook or a hosted inbox, it will need to decide whether to keep building provider by provider or adopt more abstraction later.