.Net MAUI vs Xamarin – Which Cross-platform Frameworks To Choose in 2025?

Quick Summary

Table of Contents

Introduction

When it comes to cross-platform frameworks, building apps that work seamlessly across multiple platforms can be a challenge for businesses and developers alike. Although this means that developers would only have to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms, it is essential to choose the right framework that drives performance, scalability, and user experience as well. .NET MAUI and Xamarin are two frameworks that can assist developers in crafting cross-platform mobile apps.

For many years now, Xamarin has been your go-to choice to build cross-platform apps, But the introduction of .NET MAUI, a new-age framework with modernized features and numerous advantages over Xamarin, has sparked a significant shift. .NET MAUI (short for Multi-platform App UI) can be referred to as the progression of mobile-centric Xamarin.Forms as it enables building desktop apps.

Many businesses are switching from Xamarin to .NET MAUI as the multi-platform app UI framework offers diverse benefits, such as a single project structure and improved graphics APIs. However, Xamarin has no less potential than .NET MAUI. The Xamarin UI framework has been a vital component in mobile app development for a decade and it offers many benefits, including mature platform support and a large community of developers. As both frameworks, .NET MAUI and Xamarin, have powerful capabilities, it is a little difficult to decide which one you should select for developing complex, feature-rich cross-platform apps.

But, before we move to the in-depth comparison of .NET MAUI vs Xamarin, let us first quickly understand about them.

What is .Net MAUI?

.NET MAUI, also referred to as .NET Multi-platform App UI, is a cross-platform network used popularly for developing natively compiled desktop as well as mobile applications. Built on top of .NET 6, .NET MAUI brings improved performance and features across all platforms. With .NET MAUI, developers can easily create native user interfaces and apps for iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows, all by using XAML and C# in a single codebase.

This multi-platform app UI framework can simplify designing by binding assets to the platform. However, it can still provide the essential customization features to allow developers to tailor the application to modern needs. Microsoft’s .NET MAUI allows you to write code for once and run it on any platform. It delivers better performance, increased productivity, and a more streamlined developer experience than Xamarin.Forms. Developers can write an app in .NET language that runs without any modifications on the targeted platforms.

Key Features of .NET MAUI

• XAML-based UI Design
• MVVM Architecture Support
• .NET Ecosystem Integration
• Dependency Injection
• Native User Interfaces
• Extensive Tooling
• Multi-platform Support

What is Xamarin?

Xamarin is a cross-platform development framework created in 2011 and known for building apps using C# and .NET. It has been a reliable framework for years now, gaining the trust of developers to craft native mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows. Xamarin offers native performance and complete access to platform-centric APIs and Xamarin.Forms for accelerated UI development. The framework is backed by Microsoft and has been integrated with Visual Studio.

Xamarin.Forms offer a comprehensive set of pre-built pages, layouts, and elements so that developers can build highly responsive and visually appealing applications. For businesses that need their apps to be consistent across all platforms, Xamarin can be a perfect choice for cross-platform app development. Developers can reuse around 99 percent of their codes to design apps on other platforms, which saves a significant amount of time. With just a little tweak in the code scripts, it becomes easier for developers to achieve near-native performance. This is one of the reasons for Xamarin to be a better alternative to cross-platform frameworks, such as React Native and Flutter.

Key Features of Xamarin

• Native Multi-Platform Support
• Modern IDE
• Integration with Visual Studio
• Component Store
• Comprehensive Base Class Library
• Azure Integration
• Complete Binding

.Net MAUI vs Xamarin - Comparison Table

Both the popular frameworks, .NET MAUI and Xamarin, have a lot of similarities as they share the same roots in the .NET ecosystem and are designed specifically for cross-platform app development. However, these frameworks have their own differences in terms of performance, architecture, and approach to development. But before we move into the detailed comparison of .NET MAUI vs Xamarin, let us first have a quick glance at the comparison table below for the two cross-platform development frameworks.

.Net MAUI vs Xamarin - In-depth Comparison

On the one hand, we have .NET MAUI, a cross-platform UI framework that offers a unified single-platform architecture, modern UI tools, and enhanced performance optimizations. All these features help enterprises meet modern app development needs. On the other hand, Xamarin offers a mature ecosystem and native API access and, therefore, is a well-grounded framework for building simpler cross-platform solutions. As both frameworks offer compelling features and benefits, let’s compare .NET MAUI vs Xamarin on different terms so you can select the best one for your next project.

Architecture

.NET MAUI offers a more consolidated project structure and resources with platform-specific code. It utilizes a single .NET MAUI codebase for all platforms, which can reduce the complexity and make it easier to manage and maintain cross-platform code. The framework can simplify app management and development, which further makes it helpful for app development.

In contrast, Xamarin allows developers to use multiple projects for each platform and that increases complexity in resource sharing and maintenance. Developers can create a unified codebase with the core business logic and UI code when using Xamarin. Another thing you should know about Xamarin.Forms is that it depends on a page-centric architectural approach that utilizes pages, views, and controls to craft the app’s user interface.

Supports .NET 6 and Later Versions

.NET MAUI is specifically designed to work flawlessly with .NET 6 and later versions. The integration of .NET 6 with MAUI indeed marks a notable advancement. Due to its strong support of .NET 6, developers can utilize performance improvements, new APIs, and modern features of .NET MAUI.

Xamarin, on the other hand, was designed based on older .NET frameworks and the Mono runtime. So, Xamarin has a very limited support for .NET 6. Xamarin.Form 5.0 offers better compatibility with .NET 6 after its transition. However, Xamarin still cannot beat MAUI in terms of .NET 6 feature support and performance optimizations.

Development Environment

When it comes to .NET MAUI vs Xamarin, both frameworks use Visual Studio as their primary development environment, providing a consistent, efficient IDE for cross-platform app development. Both frameworks support the use of Visual Studio for Windows and Mac, ensuring that developers have familiar tools to build and manage mobile applications effectively.

However,.NET MAUI simplifies the process of setting up by eliminating the need for additional extensions or tools. Developers can use Visual Studio or Visual Studio for Mac to create.NET MAUI applications seamlessly. In contrast, Xamarin.Forms require developers to install the Xamarin Studio or specific extensions to enable its development capabilities to the fullest.

Renderer and Handler-based Architecture

Talking about .NET MAUI and Xamarin, the former instigates an architecture fully based on the handler. The handler-based architecture easily replaces the rendered model in Xamarin.Forms. That is because handlers in .NET MAUI are efficient to use and easy to customize, which provides a centralized API for designing custom controls.
Xamarin’s renderer architecture is more code-intrusive and inherently platform-dependent. That means developers will have to build custom custom renderers in Xamarin for more significant UI customizations. These customizations certainly add to the complexity of code and increase inconsistencies across platforms.

Microsoft Blazor Integration

.NET MAUI allows a more straightforward and seamless integration with Microsoft’s Blazor. This Blazor integration allows developers to create hybrid applications using web technologies like HTML and CSS alongside .NET. With the integration of Microsoft Blazor, developers can reuse code between web and mobile projects.

On the contrary, Xamarin basically aims on native UI development and it does not offer native support for Blazor integration. So, it is not as easy to integrate Blazor as .NET MAUI. Developers will have to put on some additional efforts to utilize the benefits of Microsoft Blazor and expand the possibilities of cross-platform app development.

Lifecycle Management

.NET MAUI can simplify app lifecycle management with unified APIs across all supported platforms and provide a consistent API for app and page lifecycle management. This makes it easier to handle different types of app states like initialization, suspension, and termination. Developers can code more consistently for cross-platform app development by using .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI).

Whereas Xamarin requires platform-specific lifecycle management as it is less unified in nature as compared to .NET MAUI. This increases the complexity in managing multi-platform applications, due to which developers often have to handle iOS and Android lifecycles separately. This kind of lifecycle management can lead to code complexities and potential app inconsistencies.

Hot Reload

Another aspect of our Xamarin vs .NET MAUI comparison is the Hot Reload feature that can shorten the stages of mobile app development cycle. Both .NET MAUI and Xamarin supports Hot Reload for rapid UI updates during development. .NET MAUI offers real-time updates to XAML, C#, resources, and assets across all supported platforms, be it Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS.

Xamarin.Forms has limited support for Hot Reload. However, it primarily supports Hot Reload for Android and iOS, which allows developers to enable UI updates in real-time. In comparison with .NET MAUI, Xamarin does not provide a powerful integration with Hot Reload and a refined experience for cross-platform development.

Performance

When discussing the performance of .NET MAUI, we see that it utilizes the advancements in .NET 6 and its optimized rendering pipeline to deliver enhanced performance. With features such as ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation and optimized memory management, .NET MAUI offers faster startup times as compared to Xamarin.Forms.

While Xamarin is known for its powerful performance, especially when it comes to Xamarin.Native. Due to the use of wrappers for accessing platform-centric APIs, Xamarin lacks modern enhancements, which results in performance degradation. Xamarin.Forms can be notably slower in rendering customized and complex UIs. In the performance comparison of .NET MAUI vs Xamarin, the former framework wins to be a better choice for developing apps with complex UIs.

Community and Ecosystem

Xamarin has a mature and well-established community as it has been around for several years. The cross-platform framework provides extensive libraries, resources, plugins, and third-party integrations. Developers can get the support and guidance they seek from seasoned Xamarin developers globally.

Although .NET MAUI is comparatively newer, it is backed by Microsoft’s active support and is rapidly growing with passionate developers and enthusiasts. The .NET MAUI community is expanding as its adoption increases. Also, documentation, samples, and community support are becoming increasingly available for developers.

Xamarin vs .Net MAUI - When To Choose What?

After going through the primary differences between .NET MAUI vs Xamarin, let us help you better understand where you can use both these frameworks as per your suitability.

Conclusion

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is .NET MAUI more efficient compared with Xamarin?

NET MAUI utilizes the improvements in.NET 6, so developers can get the benefits of faster startup times, improved memory management, and handler-based architecture for UI rendering. This makes .NET MAUI a better fit to build performance-intensive apps than Xamarin.

Can I migrate an existing Xamarin app to .NET MAUI?

Microsoft provides tools and documentation to help developers migrate their apps from Xamarin.Forms to.NET MAUI. However, it may require some refactoring and adjustments due to architectural changes.

Which framework is better for desktop app development?

.NET MAUI is the best choice when it comes to desktop app development due to its native support for both macOS and Windows platforms. On the other hand, Xamarin focuses primarily on mobile application develpment and has limited support for desktop apps.

Is my Xamarin code reusable in Maui?

It would be beneficial for developers to know that Xamarin code, especially Xamarin.Forms, can be reused in .NET MAUI. That’s because .NET MAUI was created as an evolution of Xamarin.Forms. This allows developers to migrate their existing codebase with minimal modifications easily.