Introducing .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI)
.NET MAUI is:
- Multi-platform native UI
- Deploy to multiple devices across mobile & desktop
- Using a single project, single codebase
- Evolution of Xamarin.Forms
- Targeting .NET 6, previews end of year
Status: Planning and Early Development
While Xamarin.Forms continues to be actively developed to meet customer needs today, we are proposing evolutionary changes based on some early customer research of what would be most beneficial.
Active development is happening today to build Android and iOS SDKs against the next version of .NET. Samples may be found here.
Goals
- Improve app performance
- Improve simplicity of control extensibility
- Improve simplicity of contributing
- Enable developer options to use Model-View-Update (MVU) and Blazor
Roadmap
.NET MAUI and mobile SDK support will ship in concert with .NET 6. At present we do not have a shipping schedule for .NET 6.
Milestones
- .NET MAUI previews Q4 2020 through Q3 2021
- Renderer architecture revisions
- Source solution and project simplification
- Complete approved proposals
- Implement MVU
- .NET MAUI release candidate September 2021
- .NET MAUI general availability November 2021
Xamarin.Forms vs .NET MAUI
| Xamarin.Forms | .NET MAUI | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | ||
| Android | API 19+ | API 21+ |
| iOS | 9-14 | 10+ |
| Linux | Community | Community |
| macOS | Community | Microsoft |
| Tizen | Samsung | Samsung |
| Windows | UWP Microsoft WPF Community |
Microsoft |
| Features | ||
| Renderers | Tightly coupled to BindableObject | Loosely coupled, no Core dependencies |
| App Models | MVVM, RxUI | MVVM, RxUI, MVU, Blazor |
| Single Project | No | Yes |
| Multi-targeting | No | Yes |
| Multi-window | No | Yes |
| Misc | ||
| .NET | Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android, Mono, .NET Framework, ... | .NET 6+ |
| Acquisition | NuGet & Visual Studio Installer | dotnet |
| Project System | Franken-proj | SDK Style |
| dotnet CLI | No | Yes |
| Tools | ||
| Visual Studio 2019 | Yes | Yes |
| Visual Studio 2019 for Mac | Yes | Yes |
| Visual Studio Code | No | Yes |
FAQs
Do you have questions? Do not worry, we have prepared a complete FAQ answering the most common questions.
How to Engage, Contribute, and Give Feedback
Some of the best ways to contribute are to try things out, file issues, join in design conversations, and make pull-requests. Proposals for changes specific to MAUI can be found here for discussion.
See CONTRIBUTING
Code of conduct
See CODE-OF-CONDUCT