Why is .NET MAUI an Excellent Cross-Platform Development Framework for Your Business?

Cross-platform solutions are in high demand in the market of custom software development because they allow developers to build apps with code that can be reused across various platforms, ensuring much shorter time to market compared to native development approaches. 

No wonder, the market of cross-platform application development is currently growing at an impressive annual rate of 16.8%, as more and more top-tier companies invest in growing their cross-platform frameworks. 

Microsoft is not an exception, as it is rapidly promoting .NET MAUI, a framework meant to spearhead the market of cross-platform mobile development technologies. 

Today, we will explore .NET MAUI, its benefits, innovations, core principles, and essential features. 

.NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI) is an open-source and cross-platform framework used for creating native mobile and desktop apps using C# and XAML. Released in 2022, it is a relatively young framework that keeps growing at an impressive pace. .NET MAUI is meant to be the successor of Xamarin.Forms, a framework that has previously been Microsoft’s primary cross-platform development technology. .NET MAUI provides functionality and code reusability, allowing the developers to build apps that run on 

• Android 
• iOS
• MacOS
• Windows

.NET MAUI is the ultimate solution for businesses aiming to build cross-platform apps in short terms while maintaining excellent UI/UX design across different operating systems. The point is that development teams can use a single codebase to develop apps for Android, iOS, and desktop while providing a native-like experience and app performance. In terms of code reusability and compatibility with web solutions developed with .NET, this framework often outshines even Flutter. This makes .NET MAUI a perfect option for businesses relying on the Microsoft stack and aiming to launch their solutions in the shortests terms possible. 

.NET MAUI also allows software engineers to share tests, logic, design, and UI layouts across all platforms, ensuring much greater development speed compared to native approaches. 

As has already been mentioned, .NET MAUI is a successor of Xamarin.Forms. Support for all Xamarin SDKs is set to end on May 1, 2024, so switching to .NET MAUI is the ultimate option to all businesses and development teams that have previously relied on Xamarin. 

MAUI builds upon the foundation of Xamarin.Forms, aiming to expand its functionality and boost the development efficiency. The core benefits of Xamarin.Forms, such as a unified codebase for different platforms, access to native APIs, native app performance across different devices, and features for creating highly customizable UIs, are completely preserved in .NET MAUI. 

The main advantages of .NET MAUI compared to Xamarin are focused on providing a more unified and streamlined development experience, as well as expanding the range of supported platforms. The table below illustrates the main similarities and differences between .NET MAUI and Xamarin.Forms. 

Given the fact that .NET MAUI is a part of the .NET development ecosystem, known for its constant growth and strong focus on performance and coding efficiency, you can expect a range of significant benefits from this cross-platform framework. These are the most important advantages of .NET MAUI.

.NET MAUI was meant to be fast and high-performing. The user interface of a .NET Multi-platform APP UI app is constructed of objects that map to the native code of each target platform, ensuring their native-like performance. 

.NET MAUI offers fast rendering of the user interface with user-friendly layouts. Overall, while .NET is a number-one solution for excellent app performance, .NET MAUI follows this practice, providing consistently great performance across various devices. 

.NET MAUI offers unmatched functionality for creating cross-platform UIs that act like native UI components on various devices and operating systems. All user interfaces are created with a single set of APIs and XAML markup. This ensures a consistent look and feel across different platforms. In addition, .NET MAUI allows the developers to use native controls and widgets specific to each platform, leaving almost no space for any difference between a cross-platform app and native apps.

One of the most demanded innovations introduced in .NET MAUI is the Hot Reload feature. It allows developers to view the result of code changes in a running app without building and deploying the application every time they want to view the result of this change. If a developer is not satisfied with the result, they can easily roll the update back. Overall, this feature could increase the MAUI development speed dramatically and offers specialists more space for experimenting with app’s functionality.    

.NET MAUI is an excellent solution for apps that evolve over time. It leaves much space for adding features on demand. The framework provides access to various services of devices and operating systems and allows the developers to easily integrate the solution with such systems through corresponding APIs. Using .NET MAUI, a developer can easily modify the functionality of the solution with minimal additional code. Besides, the framework’s flexible design provides rich space for adding custom features written from scratch. This makes .NET MAUI app development framework a great choice for building dynamic cross-platform solutions. 

As a part of the.NET ecosystem, known for its excellent integrations with Microsoft services, .NET MAUI proves to be an excellent solution for developing apps relying on Microsoft-powered services. For example, .NET MAUI perfectly runs in combination with Blazor, Microsoft’s solution for building web user interfaces. In some cases, hybrid applications built with the combination of .NET MAUI and BlazorWebView allows developers to reuse up to 95% of the entire codebase across different devices and operating systems. 

As a .NET MAUI example, we can mention a project where the Leobit team has developed a proof of concept (PoS) for a cross-platform movie database app. The unmatched code reusability provided by the combination of .NET MAUI and Blazor allowed us to deliver an early version of the app including the basic functionality in less than two weeks. 

Now, let’s outline a few critical principles behind .NET MAUI’s efficient cross-platform development, making it one of the most promising technologies in the custom software development market. 

Developers write the complete application code, including business logic and user interface, in a shared codebase. Usually, the code is written with C#, used for defining the user interface, and XAML, responsible for the app’s logic.

While working with .NET MAUI, software developers create specific projects for each platform, including iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. 

The runtime of .NET MAUI compiles the shared code into platform-specific native code. This allows apps built with this framework to show native-like performance. 

The Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) allows .NET MAUI developers to separate app logic and interface, which helps them organize and maintain the codebase much more efficiently.

The MAUI Handler applies XAML-based user interface definitions by adapting them to platform-specific native controls. This feature ensures an app’s consistent look and user experience across various platforms.

A common choice for testing and debugging apps built with .NET MAUI is the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Rider, or VS Code. 

Let’s proceed with some integral .NET MAUI features that ensure fast and efficient development of various app components, both pertaining to an app’s user interface or logic. 

• WebView allows .NET MAUI developers to embed web content within an app, ensuring better app interactivity and improving the experience of web users.  
• .NET MAUI offers pre-built and customizable UI components, such as charts, graphs, diverse image buttons, box views, list views, and indicator views, for convenient and fast UI/UX design.
• Various layouts, such as Grid, StackLayout, AbsoluteLayout, and FlexLayout, allow the development team to easily and conveniently arrange and group UI controls in the application.   
• .NET MAUI offers pre-built native user alerts and notifications. 

With all these features, developers can quickly and efficiently implement cross-platform UI/UX designs acting like native ones. In addition, .NET MAUI offers a great range of other out-of-the-box features, and their list can be expanded with libraries and further upgrades of the framework. Everything to fulfill .NET MAUI’s primary goal – becoming the fastest and the most forward-looking cross-platform development framework.

.NET MAUI is an excellent option for most cross-platform development scenarios. However, these are use cases when this framework is an ultimate option for your business.

.NET is a leader in terms of application performance, and .NET MAUI follows this principle. If you need to build an app that runs on mobile, desktop, and web while prioritizing high performance, .NET MAUI is a perfect choice. In addition, it provides access to a variety of advanced .NET features, ensuring great development speed. 

.NET is a perfect option for the cases when you rely on the Microsoft tech stack. As a part of the .NET ecosystem, .NET MAUI shows great compatibility with other technologies from this ecosystem. As has been already mentioned, it perfectly works in combination with technologies like BlazorWebView. .NET MAUI is also a great choice for projects involving Azure. 

As a successor of Xamarin.Forms, .NET MAUI follows its basic principles, while expanding them with more advanced cross-platform development features. If you need to upgrade a cross-platform solution built with Xamarin, .NET proves to be an ultimate solution. 

WPF (WIndows Presentation Foundation) is a popular solution for building desktop apps for Windows. If you need this app to run across other devices, including mobile, .NET MAUI is the solution. Most of the code can be reused with minor modifications and you can easily preserve all application dependencies due to MAUI’s compatibility with WPF.  

.NET MAUI, a part of the .NET ecosystem, is a fast and efficient framework for developing apps for iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. It offers a great opportunity to get a cross-platform app providing excellent user experience in short terms, which matters a lot in the dynamic custom software development market. All thanks to .NET MAUI’s great flexibility allowing developers to introduce changes on the fly, create native UIs, integrate the solutions with other Microsoft services, and quickly expand an app’s functionality. 

While being the successor to Xamarin.Forms, .NET MAUI builds upon its strengths while introducing new features for building native-like cross-platform apps in shorter terms while maintaining greater development flexibility. This makes .NET MAUI a perfect choice for building fast and high-performing cross-platform apps, especially if you are relying on the Microsoft tech stack, need to upgrade a solution built with Xamarin, or extend your WPF app to run across different devices. 

With all these benefits, .NET MAUI proves to be one of the most efficient cross-platform development technologies. A partner skilled in Microsoft tech stack and .NET will be a perfect partner for the project involving .NET MAUI. 

Leobit, a Microsoft Solutions Partner, is exactly such a company. Contact us to get an ultimate cross-platform solution for conquering the market.