.NET MAUI vs Xamarin: Which Framework is Right for You?

Overview

Another classic example, like apples and oranges, is here! Over a span of a few years, the concept of cross-platform app development has been pretty much on the rise, which brings us to spotting the proper difference between .NET MAUI vs Xamarin.

What is cross-platform mobile development? As the name suggests, this kind of development is a sure-shot approach to developing a wide range of software applications. So what is so mesmerising about these systems? It is highly compatible with multiple mobile operating systems or platforms. In addition, these apps are platform-agnostic.

Now you must be wondering what is the need for it? Earlier, what used to happen was, native development apps were considered; these kinds of apps were developed for different or separate platforms with the help of platform-specific languages such as Swift for iOS apps, Kotlin for Android, and now with the inception of cross-platform development, this is certainly not the case.

Here, a unified codebase is created to develop successful apps for a wide range of platforms. Some of the common yet popular cross-platform frameworks include Flutter and React Native.

Not to mention, cross-platform development has risen, or should we say evolved, to a great extent. You see, earlier hybrid development services simply focused on saving money, but this often led to unsatisfied user experiences. Fortunately, now the modern cross-platform development approach has successfully eliminated all the trade-offs and assists in developing 95-99% of native performance in real-world applications, seamless access to device capabilities, native-like interactions, and faster deployments like never before.

Core Benefits of Cross-Platform Mobile App Development

• A single mobile app for multiple platforms

• Reduced development costs

• Agile development procedures

• Simple coding and maintenance

• Easy cloud integration

• Faster time to market and customisation

• Uniform design

Xamarin and .NET MAUI are some of the best frameworks considered in conducting cross-platform mobile development. So, without further delay, let us emphasize the two.

Xamarin

Though Xamarin has arrived way early before the .NET MAUI came in Visual Studio 2022. No wonder tech giant Microsoft refers to the latter one as a quick progression of mobile-focused Xamarin.Forms, wondering why? Well, it offers easy creation of numerous desktop-based applications. Xamarin was founded in 2011 by developers of Mono, one of the leading cross-platform frameworks used to develop native mobile apps for every platform, including Windows, Android, and iOS. If you are a newbie who is struggling hard in choosing the app development platform to start with, Xamarin can assist well in executing and implementing different test apps, even for something that was not supposed to be intended in the beginning.

In Xamarin, you are bound to find a wide range of tools. Now, what is so amazing about this technological framework is that it is highly considered for developing cross-platform apps. Most of the tools offered here are easy in terms of download and use; all you need is Visual Studio. Simply install Visual Studio; it doesn’t matter whether you try installing the free version or the paid one, but later on, you need to configure it well with Xamarin.

Xamarin promotes seamless use of the same codebase for both platforms, and this also means developers no longer have to worry about memorising the syntax of different languages every single time. And not to mention, the user interface even remains the same. Some of the core features of the Xamarin framework include:

• Quick support of wearable devices featuring Android Wear and Apple Watch.

• Seamless plugins from the Xamarin Component Store

• Popular plugins are cross-platform, such as Text-to-Speech and

• Battery Status

• Easy integration of popular backend platforms such as Parse, Microsoft Azure, etc

Basically, Xamarin assists in iterating app unless it becomes absolutely market-ready. Here, I would like to mention the benefits of conducting mobile app development.

Benefits of Xamarin

1. All in one

The first and foremost benefit to consider here is, it doesn’t matter which platform you have been targeting, Android, iOS, and other popular platforms, Xamarin apps are mainly developed using C#. And why not, since several tasks ranging from memory allocation to garbage collection and interoperability with underlying platforms can be well taken care of.

One app can assist in developing different targets, sharing a wide range of code, and even after that, handling each platform’s native design and user experience is possible. Xamarin’s single tech stack offers a wide range of tools when it comes to coding for a wide range of apps and designing the UI, which are successfully embedded into Visual Studio itself and do not require extra tooling.

2. Creating a consistent UI across different platforms

Xamarin assists developers in targeting their apps to a wide range of platforms by offering different tools that assist in designing the UI of the developed app in such a way that it matches the platform’s native design and experience.

Apart from native appearance, what else makes this one a cut above is the ability for seamless compilation of different platforms and their specific hardware, so that the final result is pretty close to natively performant.

3. Open-source technology

Though Xamarin is an open-source technology, it does feature strong corporate support. Yes, the tech is truly backed by a tech giant named Microsoft. Everything from Xamarin’s SDKs to runtime, libraries, and command-line tools is well taken care by Microsoft. Not to mention, anyone with an MIT license can use it freely.

Not to mention, one programming language is required to update two different kinds of apps. So if you try updating any of the files, both Android and iOS can gain a new set of functionalities. As a result, it is possible for engineers to work on multiple projects since updating two apps isn’t very time-consuming anymore.

Are there any disadvantages?

1. Limited access to open-source libraries

One of the biggest disadvantages here to consider is that it offers a limited amount of access to open-source libraries. Now, here the choice is not as rich as it should be for iOS and Android, which means the scope of native coding is a lot more here.

In addition, you may find that Xamarin doesn’t support all third-party libraries for Android and iOS, especially without any assistance from developers.

2. Not suitable for apps with heavy graphics

In case the app requires rich UX/UI, then consider using a different set of native app development tools. The apps that mainly rely on appearance will be way more time-consuming, especially with Xamarin, and require professionals to have extensive knowledge of technologies.

3. Larger app size

The next disadvantage to consider here includes, larger app size. Yes, all apps developed using Xamarin can vary much in size and end up reserving more space in comparison to the native-built ones. The size depends on the data libraries, Mono runtime, and Base Class Libraries used for Xamarin apps.

.NET MAUI

.NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) is a framework developed by Microsoft, allowing the creation of cross-platform apps for different platforms such as including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. all you need to have a solid grip on C# and .NET.

So, what exactly is .NET MAUI? Well, it is the proper evolution of Xamarin.Forms - Microsoft's previous cross-platform framework. It offers immense support for macOS and Windows apps. Some of the core aspects of the .NET MAUI framework include:

• Write once, use everywhere

• XAML-based UI Design

• Leverage C# and .NET

• Native controls and experience

• MVVM architecture

• Visual Studio Integration

• Dependency injection

• Open source

• Native user interfaces

• Cloud connectivity

• Mature ecosystem

History says earlier, .NET worked with Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, however, the standard was pretty much open once Mono entered. Mono is basically an open-source implementation of the .NET Framework, mainly designed to work seamlessly on platforms such as Linux and other non-Microsoft operating systems.

Eventually, Mono became a core aspect of Xamarin.Forms, and then .NET MAUI was released from Microsoft based on Xamarin.Form.

MAUI mainly stands for Multi-platform App User Interface, and is meant to ensure that cross-platform development is more easier than ever.

Benefits of .NET MAUI

1. Single development project experience with .NET CLI

One of the biggest advantages of considering .NET MAUI is that with Xamarin.Forms, developers often become frustrated while working upon multiple range of projects. Imagine targeting multiple platforms while at the same time keeping images, fonts, platform-related code well organized, adding different dependencies, and of course resolving them, all this can be pretty tedious and I have come across several experienced professionals saying “Why don’t we have an option to do this stuff in a single project?”

Yes, the framework comes with high-end support for the .NET CLI tool chain to build, develop, run, and publish .NET applications seamlessly.

2. Modern Patterns

The next advantage to take into account here includes high support for modern patterns. As we know that Xamarin. Forms offers extreme support for model-view-viewmodel and RxUI patterns, mainly known as ReactiveUI patterns, and what’s more to ask for? .NET MAUI offers extreme support for MVU (model-view-update) and Blazor development patterns.

3. Leveraging the extensive .NET ecosystem

Another benefit to consider here is to successfully leverage the extensive .NET ecosystem, so what happens here is, developers to use C# and then get very easy access to a wide range of libraries and tools, including those for data access, networking, and more.

In addition, here you will surely find a built-in dependency injection system so that managing app services is pretty easy and all these features do facilitate the use of only the best practices.

Are there any disadvantages?

1. Successful emerging framework

2. Limited third-party library support in comparison to platform-specific options

3. Learning curve in regards to cross-platform development

4. Potential performance

5. Large app size in comparison to native apps

Xamarin versus .NET MAUI

1. Development Enviornment

Though both Xamarin and .NET MAUI tend to share the same development environment, primarily Visual Studio. So here you are bound to receive a comprehensive integrated development environment (IDE) for cross-platform app development. Visual Studio for Windows and Visual Studio for Mac support both frameworks and offer accurate consistency in the development of different mobile applications.

NET MAUI vs. Xamarin, Visual Studio, or Visual Studio for Mac can be taken into account, and all this no longer requires any kind of extra extensions and tools.

2. User Interface Development

Xamarin.Forms is one such kind of UI framework that is highly used in Xamarin. Here, developers can successfully create different cross-platform UIs with the assistance of a single codebase, and of course, you are bound to receive a rich set of controls and layouts. Not to mention, Xamarin has a proven track record of offering a highly consistent look and feel irrespective of different platforms.

.NET MAUI, on the other hand, is developed on Xamarin.Forms, which means you are bound to receive an enhanced UI development experience offering absolute control over platform-specific features and enhanced performance.

3. Performance

Another differentiating factor to take into account is the overall performance. Since Xamarin is more experienced here, it seems to have made significant changes in terms of performance and not to mention since the framework promotes adequate use of wrappers for accessing platform-specific APIs, the scope automatically improves.

Whereas .NET MAUI, on the other hand, leverages all kinds of advancements, especially in .NET6 and since it incorporates an optimised rendering pipeline, you are bound to receive better performance compared to Xamarin. Here, platform-specific features and APIs ensure improved performance and responsiveness.

Which one is better? Xamarin or .NET MAUI

Well, both are great when it comes to cross-platform mobile development frameworks. Just try focusing on the team’s experience, your project’s requirements, and your budget, and then make a choice.

Conclusion

And we are done for now! Both Xamarin and .NET MAUI are of a kind, featuring a wide range of benefits and drawbacks. I hope after reading the following post, you now have a better idea of what the two popular cross-app development frameworks are and how Xamarin.Forms and .NET MAUI. different from each other.

It may quite interest to you to know that .NET MAUI is a strict evolution of Xamarin.Forms, which means most of the features and functionalities here are much in common. Anything available in Xamarin will be found in .NET MAUI, be it controls, layouts, hell, gestures, templates, and cross-platform APIs for device features and more. However, the differences mentioned above shouldn’t be ignored at any rate.

So that’s all for now! The choice of the tech mainly depends on your core needs and objectives, so choose pretty wisely. In case if you have any doubts or queries, feel free to mention them in the comment section below. Good luck with your cross-platform app development project. I am sure by choosing the right tech partner, you will succeed in the long run.