/Xamarin.Plugins

Cross-platform Native API Access from Shared Code!

MIT LicenseMIT

Plugins for .NET, Xamarin, and Windows

Here is my essential list of official and community plugins and libraries for applications. You will find a lot of Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms libraries, but also great libraries for .NET that can help power your apps. If you have a favorite library or are the creator of one, please send a PR!

Xamarin.Essentials: The stuff your app needs

Xamarin.Essentials gives developers essential cross-platform APIs for their mobile applications. Xamarin.Essentials exposes over 60 native APIs in a single cross-platform package for developers to consume in their iOS, Android, UWP, or Xamarin.Forms application. Browse through the documentation on how to get started today.

The repository for Xamarin.Essentials can be found at https://github.com/xamarin/Essentials. If you have any suggestions or feature requests, or if you find any issues, please open a new issue.

If you have bene using my plugins, I will continue to support the ones that aren't in Xamarin.Essentials, but I recommend you transition using my guide.

Shiny: That complex stuff made easy

Shiny is an amazing project from Allan Ritchie, Microsoft MPV and long time Xamarin developer, that makes really complex native functionality easy. This includes things such at Bluetooth LE, Background Jobs, HTTP Transers, Push Notifications, NFC, and more.

Community Provided Open Source Plugins

Plugins for Xamarin are community built NuGet and Components that add cross-platform functionality or abstracts platform specific functionality to a common API. These are both completely cross-platform and extremely small (i.e., they do 1 or 2 things really well with minimal-to-no dependencies). The Plugin API can be accessed on each platform, however, you will most likely only use the common API in a .NET Standard project.

Notice: Plugins for Xamarin featured here are produced by the amazing open source community of Xamarin developers. Xamarin does not provide official support for these plugins, please contact their creator with any issues.

Browse through the most popular plugins out there today!

Name Description NuGet Docs & Source Creator
Audio Recorder Record audio on a device's microphone input. NuGet GitHub @NateRickard
Barcode Scanner Scan and create barcodes with ZXing.NET.Mobile. NuGet GitHub @Redth
Breach Detector Detect root, emulation, debug mode and other security concerns. NuGet GitHub @nmilcoff
Calendar Query and modify device calendars NuGet GitHub Caleb Clarke
Config Define the settings of the application for each environment in which it will run. NuGet GitHub @abonilla93
Custom Vision Runs CoreML and TensorFlow models from https://CustomVision.ai on device NuGet GitHub @JimBobBennett
File Picker Pick and save files. NuGet GitHub @studyxnet
File Uploader Upload files using multipart request. NuGet GitHub @rdelrosario
Fingerprint Access Fingerprint sensor on iOS, Android, and Windows. NuGet GitHub @smstuebe
Geolocator Easily detect GPS location of device. NuGet GitHub @JamesMontemagno
Identity Document Scanning Enable scanning of various identity documents in your app. NuGet GitHub @microblink
In-App Billing Make, Query, and get In-App Purchases and Subscriptions. NuGet GitHub @JamesMontemagno
Media Take or pick photos and videos. NuGet GitHub @JamesMontemagno
Media Manager Playback for Audio and Video. NuGet GitHub @mhvdijk
Multilingual Plugin Simple cross platform plugin for handling language localization. NuGet GitHub @CrossGeeks
Screenshot Get and save a screenshot of your apps. NuGet GitHub @wilson_vargasm
Speech Recognition Speech to Text. NuGet GitHub @allanritchie911
Simple Audio Player Play multiple MP3 or wave files from a shared library. NuGet GitHub @adrianstevens
Store Review Ask for store review or launch app store page. NuGet GitHub @jamesmontemagno
Toast A simple way of showing toast/pop-up notifications. NuGet GitHub @AdamPed & @EgorBo
User Dialogs Message box style dialogs. NuGet GitHub @allanritchie911

Data Caching & Databases

Name Description NuGet Docs & Source Creator
Akavache An asynchronous, persistent (i.e. writes to disk) key-value store. NuGet GitHub @paulcbetts
Cosmos DB Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database service. NuGet GitHub @azurecosmosdb
LiteDB LiteDB - A .NET NoSQL Document Store in a single data file NuGet GitHub @mbdavid
🐒 Monkey Cache Cache any data structure for a specific amount of time with minimal dependencies. NuGet GitHub @jamesmontemagno
Mono.Data.Sqlite Add Mono.Data.Sqlite to any Xamarin or Windows .NET app. NuGet GitHub @mattleibow
Realm Realm is a mobile database: a replacement for SQLite and ORMs. NuGet GitHub @realm
SQLite-net Simple, powerful, cross-platform SQLite client and ORM for .NET NuGet GitHub @praeclarum

Awesome .NET Libraries For Apps

These are just some awesome libraries that work in any .NET app!

Name Description NuGet Docs & Source Creator
AnyBind Easily bind ViewModel to one or more Models. NuGet GitHub Alexander Kvenvolden
Expressive Expression parsing and evaluation framework NuGet GitHub Shawn Lawrence
HttpTracer Simple tracing library to capture HTTP request/responses. NuGet GitHub BSi Labs
MvvmHelpers Collection of small MVVM helpers for app devs. NuGet GitHub Creator
Portable Razor Lightweight implemenation of ASP.NET MVC APIs for mobile. NuGet GitHub @JosephHill
Sockets TCP & UDP Listeners and Clients + UDP multicast. NuGet GitHub @rdavis_au
TinyInsights Abstraction for one or more analytics providers from shared code. NuGet GitHub TinyStuff Team

MVVM Frameworks

Xamarin.Forms and Windows has MVVM built right, but perhaps you want to go farther and need more. Checkout these great libraries to help you out:

  • FreshMvvm - A super light Mvvm Framework designed specifically for Xamarin.Forms. It's designed to be Easy, Simple and Flexible.
  • MvvmAtom - Provides the middle ground by providing the base classes and wiring for most commonly used MVVM feature.
  • MvvmCross - Build clean, pixel perfect, native UIs. Share behavior and business logic in a single codebase across supported platforms, using the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) design pattern.
  • MvvmLight - The main purpose of the toolkit is to accelerate the creation and development of MVVM applications in Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Forms, Windows 10 UWP, & Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
  • Prism - Prism is a framework for building loosely coupled, maintainable, and testable XAML applications in WPF, Windows 10 UWP, and Xamarin.Forms.
  • Xamarin.Forms Mvvm Adaptor - ViewModel-first mvvm framework for Xamarin.Forms. Lightweight, it adapts Xamarin's existing mvvm engine.

UI Controls - Vendors

Looking for controls for your apps? These vendors have absolutely everything that you need. Many offer free trials, community editions or a free version.

Checkout the awesome trailer for these controls on YouTube.

UI Controls - Community

Here are some awesome UI controls for your Xamarin.Forms apps!

Name Description NuGet Docs & Source Creator
AutoSuggestBox Auto-complete/suggestion textbox control NuGet GitHub dotMorten
Bit controls Multi calendar date time picker based on noda time and a few other controls. NuGet GitHub Bit foundation
Breadcrumb Automatically generated breadcrumb navigation control for Xamarin.Forms. NuGet GitHub Ieuan Walker
Color Picker An interactive and responsive Color Picker Control for Xamarin.Forms based on SkiaSharp! NuGet GitHub Udara Alwis
Debug Rainbows Overlay grids to help manage layouts. NuGet GitHub Steven Thewissen
FFImageLoading Image loading with caching, placeholders, transformations and more NuGet GitHub @molinch, @daniel-luberda
FloatingActionMenu Floating action menu, inspired by the material design floating action button. NuGet GitHub DIPS AS Team
MagicGradients Gradients everywhere! Powered by SkiaSharp NuGet GitHub Marcin Gierlasiński
Material Design Controls for Xamarin.Forms The suite of Material Design controls with a feature-rich. Create fast, beautiful, and cross-platform mobile apps. NuGet GitHub Horus Studio
MtAdmob Add Google Admob banners, interstitials and rewarded videos to Android and iOS with a single line of code. NuGet GitHub @marcojak
PancakeView An extended ContentView for Xamarin.Forms with rounded corners, borders, shadows and more. NuGet GitHub Steven Thewissen
Popup Custom popups with a nice modality feed to it. NuGet GitHub DIPS AS Team
Shared Transitions Des NuGet GitHub Giampaolo Gabba
Sheet Sliding bottom / top sheet control. NuGet GitHub DIPS AS Team
Sharpnado Collection of controls including Tabs, TaskLoaderVIew, and more. NuGet GitHub Jean-Marie Alfonsi
Skeleton for Xamarin.Forms The latest trend for loading approaches in Xamarin Forms apps. NuGet GitHub Horus Studio
SkiaSharp Cross-platform 2D graphics API for .NET powered by Skia NuGet GitHub Mono Team
SkiaSharp for Xamarin.Forms Cross-platform 2D graphics API for Xamarin.Forms powered by Skia NuGet GitHub Mono Team
StateSquid Turn any layout into an individual state-aware element Nuget GitHub Steven Thewissen
TouchEffect Make Xamarin.Forms views touch-responsive without TapGestureRecognizer. NuGet GitHub Andrei Misiukevich
TrendGraph Display a trend graph in your mobile app. NuGet GitHub DIPS AS Team
Xamanimation An awesome animation library for Xamarin.Forms NuGet GitHub Creator
Xamlly Control library featuring progress, switch, toggle button, and more. NuGet GitHub Mohamed Elshawaf

Great Utilities

These are things that your app needs, but aren't UI or normal libraries such as Visual Studio extensions or other magic build time things.

Name Description NuGet Docs & Source Creator
Mobile Tasks for Azure DevOps Tasks to update version numbers & package information VS Marketplace GitHub James Montemagno
Mobile.BuildTools Handle Project Secrets, Process SCSS to Xamarin.Forms CSS, Cross platform image management, White-Labeling and more powered by MSBuild. NuGet GitHub Dan Siegel
ResizetizerNT Add & Resize SVGs and PNGs to your shared projects. NuGet GitHub Jon Dick
VSMac-CodeCoverage Gather code coverage results for your unit test projects from Visual Studio for Mac. mpack install GitHub Arthur Demanuele
VSMac-CodeDistribution A Visual Studio for Mac extension that visualises code distribution between projects. Particularly useful for Xamarin projects to understand the amount of code shared between platforms. mpack install GitHub Arthur Demanuele

Create a Plugin for Xamarin

If you are looking to create a plugin be sure to browse through NuGet first and ensure that the plugin doesn't exist. If one does join in on the fun and collaborate. If it doesn't and you want to start building a Plugin here are some tools and guidelines to get you started.

Tools to get Started

Requirements of a Plugin

  • Open source on GitHub
  • Documentation on GitHub's README file
  • Name: "FEATURE_NAME Plugin for Xamarin and Windows"
  • Namespace: Plugin.FEATURE_NAME
  • App-store friendly OSS license (we like MIT)
  • No dependency on Xamarin.Forms
  • Have a list of supported and unsupported OSs in its GitHub wiki

License

Licensed under MIT see License file. Each plugin licensed under parent license unless stated in it's readme file.

Want To Support This Project?

All I have ever asked is to be active by submitting bugs, features, and sending those pull requests down! Want to go further? Make sure to subscribe to my weekly development podcast Merge Conflict, where I talk all about awesome Xamarin goodies and you can optionally support the show by becoming a supporter on Patreon.