What are your opinions about Avalonia? It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and WebAssembly, with the mobile platforms being in a more immature state as support was added recently.

MAUI is the continuation of Xamarin.Forms, while Avalonia is the spiritual successor to WPF, albeit open-source and cross-platform. MAUI uses platform-native controls (which means the same control may appear or behave differently between operating systems), while Avalonia builds everything with Skia, so it renders the same in every platform. I think of it as the .NET alternative to Flutter, though with a more desktop-centric focus, instead of being mobile-first.

I have not used it yet but it seems the most promising .NET UI framework and I’m hoping to build a personal project in the following months. The first Release Candidate of Avalonia UI v11, which stabilises the API, was released two weeks ago.

  • @denyos
    link
    31 year ago

    I just recently discovered AvaloniaUI and have been following the tutorials. So far the experience is quite good. The selling point for me is Linux support, MAUI is still not working on Linux desktops and it seems Microsoft will not focus on that anytime soon. Hence, the only real cross-platform solution for me is Avalonia. My WPF skills seem to transfer quite easily and I’m currently in the process of building my first app with Rider on Linux. I need to see how it will handle a more difficult layout and animations, but so far my impression is positive.