Software Development Updates

* As of May 1, 2024, Xamarin is no longer supported or updated by Microsoft.

As technology evolves, new and more robust frameworks are replacing older ones. When it comes to creating mobile apps, Xamarin has been a go-to option for developers for many years. Though it has a few limitations, it has certainly helped in creating powerful and versatile cross-platform applications. 

But now, there is a new framework in the market namely, .NET MAUI, an improved version of Xamarin.Forms. Microsoft created MAUI to replace Xamarin. Indeed it’s a new framework with better and advanced features but it is not as mature as Xamarin. 

So, it’s obvious to wonder which option is better. In an ideal case, businesses collaborate with a reputed .NET development company that guides them through their cross-platform app development journey. 

 It is also important for businesses to understand their options so they can make informed decisions about their projects. This article provides an overview of .NET MAUI vs Xamarin, explaining their features, benefits, and differences. 

1. .NET MAUI Overview

.NET MAUI is a cross-platform framework developed by Microsoft as an upgrade to Xamarin.Forms. It streamlines cross-platform app development through a single codebase and shared UI designs. .NET MAUI provides a consistent project structure, improved performance, and simpler cross-platform APIs compared to Xamarin. 

Developers can choose the most suitable project using .NET MAUI, as it supports modern architectures like Model-View-Update. The framework offers new templates, layouts, and controls to create an elegant and responsive multi-platform app UI. 

Here is what a Twitter user says about .NET MAUI.

1.1 Key Features of .NET MAUI

.NET MAUI offers a wide range of features that simplify cross-platform app development and enhance performance. Some of those features are as mentioned below: 

Single Project Structure

Even though .NET MAUI targets multiple platforms, it consists of a single project structure. Traditionally, cross-platform development frameworks required separate projects for different platforms. But .NET MAUI packs it all in a single project, simplifying project management.

.NET Ecosystem Integration

C# is used to write business logic in .NET MAUI. Its ability to integrate with the .NET ecosystem allows access to numerous tools and .NET libraries for various activities, such as networking and data management. 

Dependency Injection

.NET MAUI can easily handle all the app dependencies as it supports dependency injection. This feature promotes clean architecture and allows you to build loosely coupled components. This helps enhance the testability of your application.  

Here is what a Twitter user says about dependency Injection.

Performance Enhancements

.NET MAUI has many improvements compared to its predecessor, especially in terms of performance. It utilizes recent upgrades in .NET to help build high-performing cross-platform apps. So, your app can function properly on all platforms without any difficulty. 

Model-View-Update (MVU) Architecture

MAUI has adopted the MVU design pattern, which promotes a clear division of responsibilities, allowing you to create user interfaces effortlessly. 

1.2 Benefits of .NET MAUI

Reasons why you should use .NET MAUI for your app development project are as discussed below: 

Familiar Programming Language

.NET MAUI uses the C# programming language, which most of the developers are already familiar with. So, there is no need to take time to learn a new language and you can directly get started with the project. This helps improve both development speed and developer productivity. 

Code Reusability

.NET MAUI allows developers to use the same logic or the same code across different platforms. It provides a developer-friendly environment where developers can write a single codebase capable of running on multiple platforms. Code reusability helps maintain consistent performance across these various platforms. 

Reduced Development Time and Cost

With .NET MAUI, you no longer need to create and maintain separate codebases for each .NET platform. This approach saves valuable development time and resources that went after it. As a result, the development cost is also reduced. 

Community and Support

Because it is part of the .NET ecosystem, MAUI benefits from the support of the .NET community. The most significant support it gets is from its creator, Microsoft. They help with the continuous support and updates for the framework, ensuring that it copes with the latest trends and technologies. 

2. Xamarin Overview

*Support for Xamarin ended on May 1, 2024, by Microsoft.

Launched in 2011, Xamarin is a C#-based development framework popular for its cross-platform capabilities. Microsoft acquired Xamarin and its corresponding SDK in 2016 and integrated it with Microsoft Visual Studio, making it available under an open-source MIT license. 

Xamarin allows you to create an app with a single codebase but can run on various platforms such as Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS. The development framework also provides platform-specific APIs. A small adjustment in the platform’s programming language would provide near-native performance on all platforms. 

Xamarin helps create aesthetic and responsive user interfaces by offering a variety of pre-built controls, layouts, and pages. This helps accelerate the UI development process. Many developers prefer it for rapid prototyping. 

Here is what Quora user says about Xamarin.

2.1 Features of Xamarin

Some of the key capabilities that make Xamarin an ideal option for cross-platform app development include: 

Native Multi-Platform Support

Xamarin supports multiple platforms by providing native support through APIs and tools for Windows, Android, and iOS. So, when you build an app using Xamarin, you can provide a native UI experience without affecting its performance. Such flexibility is also a reason why developers choose Xamarin. 

Single Codebase

With Xamarin, developers can write the core logic for the app once using the C# programming language and then run it on multiple platforms like Windows, iOS, and Android. This way, you do not have to create and manage separate codebases for every platform. 

Comprehensive Base Class Library

Xamarin leverages the .NET Base Class Library to provide a wide range of features for networking, serialization, database management, and XML handling. 

Complete Binding

Xamarin offers strongly typed bindings through SDKs for Android and iOS, making it easier to use and navigate cross-platform apps. Xamarin also provides reliable type-checking for code development and compilation. 

2.2 Benefits of Xamarin

Xamarin was a popular choice for cross-platform app development, offering several advantages: 

Fast Development Cycle

Most of the code in Xamarin is reusable. The same code can be used to develop an app for various platforms. There is no need to rewrite the same code repeatedly for different platforms. This speeds up the app development process. Xamarin uses C# and .NET libraries for coding. 

Near-Native UI and Performance

Xamarin allows you to create a platform-specific user interface using native components. This helps offer a native app-like experience. Developers have to write native-level code for iOS and Android applications in IDEs such as Visual Studio. Xamarin focuses on providing enhanced performance and functionality. Its use of smooth rendering and a thinner abstraction layer allows the app to function as if it were native. 

Full Hardware Support

Xamarin addresses hardware compatibility issues through platform-specific APIs and plugins. It provides common device functionalities that are applicable across all the platforms. Xamarin connects the app with native libraries to give it a native look and functionalities. 

Code Sharing Across Multiple Platforms

If you are creating native apps, you need to learn and use platform-specific languages. If you are building an application for multiple platforms then it requires knowledge of several languages such as Objective C, Java, Swift, and more. However, Xamarin allows you to create cross-platform applications with a single codebase running on multiple platforms. Though sometimes you might have to make some platform-specific changes, almost 75% of the code can be reused on different platforms. 

3. .NET MAUI vs Xamarin Comparison on Different Parameters

After reviewing the features and advantages of the frameworks, it’s time to compare our contenders using important parameters to understand their differences. This comparison will help you make an informed decision for your upcoming project. 

3.1 Architecture

.NET MAUI uses a unified multi-platform app UI framework with a single project structure. It allows you to create cross-platform applications using a single codebase with native UI and business logic for all platforms. The MVVM architecture pattern enhances the code organization and testability in MAUI. 

On the other hand, Xamarin takes a traditional way to cross-platform app development where it creates a separate project for every platform along with a shared project. Xamarin.Forms offer a page-centric architecture that helps create an app’s UI with controls, Views, and pages.

It requires access to platform-specific features and APIs to provide native functionalities. Therefore, it is necessary to create platform-specific projects in Xamarin, which leads to complex project structures. 

Such a significant difference in the architecture affects the development workflow as well as the scalability and maintainability of the app in the long term. 

3.2 Project Structure

Using Xamarin.Forms can be overwhelming because they require you to manage multiple projects targeting different platforms. This demands that you store your platform-specific code, images, fonts, and other UI elements in a well-organized manner. 

Project structure for cross-platform application using Xamarin.Forms.

MyXamarinApp

│
├── MyXamarinApp (Shared Code Project)
│   ├── App.xaml
│   ├── App.xaml.cs
│   ├── MainPage.xaml
│   ├── MainPage.xaml.cs
│   ├── Resources
│   │   ├── Images
│   │   └── Styles
│   ├── Models
│   ├── ViewModels
│   └── Views
│
├── MyXamarinApp.iOS (iOS Project)
│   ├── AppDelegate.cs
│   ├── Info.plist
│   ├── Resources
│   │   ├── Images
│   │   └── LaunchScreen.storyboard
│   ├── Views
│   └── Main.cs
│
├── MyXamarinApp.Droid (Android Project)
│   ├── MainActivity.cs
│   ├── AndroidManifest.xml
│   ├── Resources
│   │   ├── drawable
│   │   ├── layout
│   │   ├── mipmap
│   │   └── values
│   └── MainApplication.cs
│
└── MyXamarinApp.UWP (UWP Project - optional)
	├── App.xaml
	├── App.xaml.cs
	├── MainPage.xaml
	├── MainPage.xaml.cs
	├── Resources
	└── Views

Meanwhile, developers only have to work on a single .NET MAUI project when using .NET MAUI. Here, they only have one project targeting multiple platforms. The app will include subfolders where each subfolder has platform-specific code and content. 

Typical structure for a .NET MAUI project structure.

MyMauiApp

│
├── MyMauiApp (Shared Code Project)
│   ├── App.xaml
│   ├── App.xaml.cs
│   ├── MainPage.xaml
│   ├── MainPage.xaml.cs
│   ├── Resources
│   │   ├── Images
│   │   └── Styles
│   ├── Models
│   ├── ViewModels
│   ├── Views
│   └── Services
│
├── Platforms
│   ├── Android
│   │   ├── MainActivity.cs
│   │   ├── AndroidManifest.xml
│   │   ├── Resources
│   │   │   ├── drawable
│   │   │   ├── layout
│   │   │   ├── mipmap
│   │   │   └── values
│   │   └── MainApplication.cs
│   │
│   ├── iOS
│   │   ├── AppDelegate.cs
│   │   ├── Info.plist
│   │   ├── Resources
│   │   │   ├── Images
│   │   │   └── LaunchScreen.storyboard
│   │   ├── Views
│   │   └── Main.cs
│   │
│   ├── MacCatalyst
│   │   ├── AppDelegate.cs
│   │   ├── Info.plist
│   │   └── Main.cs
│   │
│   └── Windows
│   	├── App.xaml
│   	├── App.xaml.cs
│   	├── MainPage.xaml
│   	├── MainPage.xaml.cs
│   	└── Resources
│       	└── Images
│
└── MyMauiApp.sln

3.3 UI Development

With .NET MAUI, UI designers can create a single user interface that functions as a native UI on any platform. The framework uses a single markup language, XAML to define the UI that improves the consistency and code reuse across all platforms. .NET MAUI provides better performance and control over platform-specific features to deliver an improved user experience. 

There are two methods to create a user interface (UI) using Xamarin. Either use a common UI code from Xamarin.Forms across all platforms or write a unique UI code for each platform, such as iOS and Android.

Although it is possible to share the code across different platforms through Xamarin.Forms, you need to add platform-specific features using unique renderers. A common UI codebase provides a consistent look appearance across multiple platforms along with a rich set of UI layouts and controls. 

3.4 Hot Reload Support

.NET MAUI framework supports Hot reload to provide a better development experience. This allows you to update all the C# and XAML resources across multiple platforms in real-time without the need to redesign them from scratch. This feature comes seamlessly integrated with the Visual Studio, enhancing cross-platform development and improving developer productivity.

Hot reload in .NET MAUI allows developers to modify both the interface and the logic of their application, facilitating code iteration for .NET developers. It supports hot reload in XAML and C#, enabling edits to the source code and XAML while the app is running. This functionality allows developers to observe and monitor the app without stopping, rebuilding, and starting it. 

Xamarin provides support for Hot reload in XAML but with limited capabilities. It allows real-time UI updates with Hot Reload for iOS and Android platforms. However, it doesn’t support Hot Reload in C#. In short, the Hot Reload in .NET MAUI offers a more refined and integrated approach to cross-platform app development compared to Xamarin. 

3.5 Performance

.NET MAUI takes full advantage of the improvements made to the .NET framework. It’s efficient memory management and AOT compilation contribute to quick startup times. Even in complex UI scenarios, .NET MAUI provides enhanced performance with its streamlined architecture and handler system. Its rendering pipeline also helps improve the overall app performance. Its platform-specific features and APIs ensure great responsiveness. 

Xamarin was well-known for performance optimization, especially Xamarin.Native. However, it used wrappers to access platform-specific APIs, which led to performance overhead. Xamarin.Forms experience slow rendering when handling complex UIs that rely on custom renderers.

As a result, it performs poorly on Android devices. .NET MAUI has a new and improved rendering system that can deliver fast and high-performing applications.

Comparing the performance in a tabular form.

Feature	Xamarin	.NET MAUI
App Starting Time	Additional overheads slower the starting time.	Unified architecture speeds up the starting time.
UI Rendering	Slower rendering especially when the layout is complex.	Optimized for native controls and layouts
Memory Usage	Xamarin runtime consumes a significant amount of memory	Comes with .NET6/7 runtime which is memory efficient
Cross-platform efficiency	Needs more cross-platform bindings	Quite efficient with the unified platform code
App size	Due to Xamarin runtime, the app sizes are large	Thanks to single file deployment, the app sizes are smaller.
Platform-specific optimizations	Needs some manual work for platform-specific performance	Provides optimized and streamlined platform access.

3.6 Graphics APIs

Xamarin doesn’t offer any direct APIs to fulfill drawing requirements. Developers must use native renderers for custom graphics. Xamarin doesn’t support custom drawing nor does it provide any graphics capabilities. The primary type used in Xamarin is color. 

On the other hand, the primary type in .NET MAUI is the Brush. It provides a drawing canvas to create shapes and paintings, thanks to its cross-platform graphics functionalities. .NET MAUI offers various graphics modes such as blend, winding, and paint.

3.7 Lifecycle Management

The .NET MAUI takes a unified approach for desktop and mobile platforms to simplify lifecycle management. As a result, you can consistently handle all the lifecycle events using a single codebase. This streamlines cross-platform app development and increases its efficiency. .NET MAUI’s common lifecycle management system for all platforms also simplifies state management and navigation in the application. 

Xamarin provides lifecycle management to handle app state and navigation. However, it needs more platform-specific handling due to its less unified nature. This forces developers to create and maintain separate lifecycles for both Android and iOS platforms. As a result, the code becomes more complex, giving way to numerous inconsistencies in the app behavior across different platforms. 

4. Conclusion

There are many similarities between Xamarin and .NET MAUI and some major differences. They both have some unique strengths and weaknesses as well. Xamarin is a mature framework with large community support but provides inconsistent performance across different platforms. 

Meanwhile, .NET MAUI uses the latest advancements in the .NET framework to provide improved performance. It is easy to learn and use. It is becoming a new go-to framework when it comes to cross-platform app development. The decision to pick the right technology from .NET MAUI vs Xamarin depends on your project requirements, budget, and the team’s experience. 

FAQs 

Why migrate from Xamarin to MAUI?

When using Xamarin, you have to create a separate project for each targeted platform. Handling them all is complicated. But if you migrate to MAUI, then you get a streamlined cross-platform development process due to its single project structure. 

Is .NET MAUI the same as Xamarin?

.NET MAUI offers everything that Xamarin offers including the templates, layouts, gestures, Shell, controls, and cross-platform APIs for native functionalities.