Why Migrate From Xamarin And Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI?

Every product has its lifecycle, and Microsoft’s Xamarin officially came to its end in May 2024. While existing Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms applications still continue to function, they become harder to support with each passing day.

But every cloud has a silver lining. Microsoft hasn’t just ended the support of its popular cross-platform framework but has evolved it into .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI), a modern alternative to Xamarin.

So, if you’re still using Xamarin or Xamarin Forms, should you consider migrating to .NET MAUI to ensure your apps remain up-to-date and supported? In this article, we’ll answer this question and also prove or deny myths around .NET MAUI.

But let’s start from the basics.

Launched in 2022, .NET MAUI is a rapidly growing Microsoft framework for building cross-platform applications. Though relatively young, it has already gained significant traction among developers, with 22.5K+ ​stars on GitHub and 411K+ ​.NET NuGet packages. Over the past year, the number of apps built with .NET MAUI on the Google Play Store has more than doubled, and developer adoption has grown by over 30%.

.NET MAUI isn’t just a replacement for Xamarin.Forms, but a significant evolution of cross-platform development within the .NET ecosystem. It has already surpassed its predecessor in popularity, with 3.1% of developers using .NET MAUI compared to 2.9% for Xamarin. This growth is unsurprising, as .NET MAUI streamlines the development process by allowing developers to create native user interfaces for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows using a single shared codebase.

The .NET MAUI community has also played a key role in its growth, contributing to its ecosystem by expanding libraries and enhancing functionality. Notably, third-party providers, including Syncfusion, have introduced open-source UI components to support developers in building feature-rich applications.

The end of Xamarin support brings more restrictions every day, forcing businesses to make a critical decision: migrate to .NET MAUI now or wait and continue with an unsupported framework.

Before diving into migration, it’s important to clarify the difference between Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms, as they are often used interchangeably but serve different purposes. Xamarin is a broader framework that enables cross-platform mobile development using C# and .NET. It includes Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS, which provide direct bindings to native APIs.

Xamarin.Forms, in turn, is a UI framework built on top of Xamarin that allows developers to create a single, shared UI across iOS, Android, and Windows while maintaining native performance.

In the context of migration to .NET MAUI, the focus is primarily on Xamarin.Forms, as it directly evolves into .NET MAUI. However, if your application uses Xamarin.Android or Xamarin.iOS, you may still need to consider migration strategies, such as integrating them with .NET 6+ or refactoring to align with .NET MAUI’s architecture.

While you may have concerns about whether .NET MAUI is fully ready for large projects, you should carefully weigh them against the significant risks of relying on outdated technology.

You can continue using Xamarin for a limited time while evaluating your options or deciding between .NET MAUI and alternatives like Flutter. However, staying long with Xamarin comes with considerable consequences.

• Increased future migration costs. Every day of staying with Xamarin increases expenses in the long run. As your codebase expands, transitioning to .NET MAUI or any modern framework exceeds future migration efforts, and so do costs. Furthermore, the widening gap between Xamarin and newer technologies adds technical debt that you must address during migration.
• iOS and Android compatibility issues. Google now demands that applications target Android 14 (API level 34+) to publish updates on the Play Store. Xamarin supports targeting only up to Android 13, making it impossible to comply with these new requirements. Similarly, Apple requires applications to target iOS 17, but Xamarin supports targeting only up to iOS 16. This limitation prevents you from releasing updates, potentially causing apps to become outdated or non-functional on newer devices.
• Performance limitations. Applications built with Xamarin can experience performance bottlenecks due to the framework’s older architecture and runtime inefficiencies. These issues arise from factors such as higher memory consumption, slower rendering, and reliance on an outdated Mono runtime. For instance, a Xamarin app with complex dependencies might take 2-3 seconds to launch, causing user frustration. In contrast, .NET MAUI uses the latest .NET 6+ runtime (and beyond), which offers faster app startup times, optimized memory usage, and smoother performance across platforms.
• Decline in community and support. As Microsoft shifts its focus to .NET MAUI, official resources, community contributions, and plugin support for Xamarin steadily decline. This complicates troubleshooting and makes it harder to find relevant documentation. As a result, addressing critical bugs or implementing new features may take longer.
• Dependency on deprecated libraries. Many third-party libraries and plugins that Xamarin applications rely on have also stopped receiving updates. For instance, SkiaSharp is a popular 2D graphics library used in Xamarin apps. While SkiaSharp itself is supported, its Xamarin.Forms-specific extensions (e.g., SkiaSharp.Views.Forms) will not be updated as development shifts to .NET MAUI. This creates compatibility risks, security vulnerabilities, and additional technical hurdles as external dependencies grow outdated or unsupported.

As you can see, delaying migration raises the risk of app marketplace rejections, security vulnerabilities, or performance degradations that could affect your business operations. Addressing these issues reactively may result in rushed and costly migration efforts and threaten your reputation.

Converting Xamarin to MAUI becomes more vital each day, especially if you plan to scale your application by increasing user load, adding new features, or expanding to other platforms.

Here are the benefits you get by converting your Xamarin or Xamarin.Forms app to .NET MAUI.

The architecture of .NET MAUI is built on .NET 6 and later versions, which are designed to be more efficient than Xamarin. .NET MAUI supports the MVU (model-view-update) and Blazor development patterns, as well as the MVVM (model-view-viewmodel) and RxUI patterns. Thus, .NET MAUI provides developers with a versatile toolkit that helps them use their existing skills and choose the most appropriate architecture pattern for building cross-platform apps.

.NET MAUI developers can benefit from significant performance improvements and access to modern platform features. It uses .NET 6+ runtime capabilities, resulting in faster app startup times and smoother user experiences. Developers also benefit from enhanced rendering engines and better integration with native device capabilities.

What’s more, .NET MAUI uses the XAML markup language and provides C# Hot Reload, allowing developers to see UI and logic changes instantly without restarting the app. This feature dramatically speeds up the development cycle.

One of the biggest advantages of .NET MAUI over Xamarin.Forms is its single-project architecture, which eliminates the need for multiple platform-specific projects. In Xamarin, developers had to manage separate iOS, Android, and Windows projects, which made code sharing more complex and increased maintenance efforts.

With .NET MAUI, developers work with a unified project structure that seamlessly targets multiple platforms. Since .NET MAUI consolidates projects, resources like images, fonts, styles, and localization files can be shared across platforms without duplication.

In Xamarin, each platform required separate NuGet package configurations, leading to dependency conflicts and additional work to keep everything up to date. With .NET MAUI, NuGet packages and dependencies are managed globally within a single project. All of this significantly reduces development time, configuration headaches, and project complexity.

One of the standout features of .NET MAUI is its integration with Blazor, Microsoft’s modern web UI framework. This integration allows developers to reuse Blazor components across web, desktop, and mobile applications, which streamlines development and enhances code reusability.

With .NET MAUI Blazor hybrid apps, developers can embed Blazor components inside a native .NET MAUI application. Blazor components are hosted inside a WebView control, which acts as a bridge between the Blazor UI and native platform capabilities. Unlike a traditional Blazor WebAssembly app that runs inside a browser, Blazor Hybrid in .NET MAUI runs directly on the device, which enables deep integration with native APIs.

Unlike Xamarin, which is no longer receiving updates, .NET MAUI is actively maintained, meaning businesses can expect fewer bugs, lower security risks, and a smoother development experience.

.NET MAUI is fully integrated into the .NET ecosystem, making it easier to use the latest APIs, libraries, and cloud services. Xamarin, by contrast, required custom workarounds to integrate with modern .NET features, increasing development complexity.

Migrating from Xamarin to .NET MAUI requires careful planning, as the transition affects your application’s codebase, dependencies, UI components, and platform compatibility. Depending on your project’s complexity and long-term goals, there are three primary migration approaches: replatforming, reworking, and full rebuilding.

Replatforming is the quickest and least disruptive way to migrate an application from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI. This approach focuses on converting your existing Xamarin codebase to .NET MAUI without significant refactoring, making it ideal for applications that do not require substantial architectural changes.
There are two primary ways to replatform your application:

• Automatic migration (by using Microsoft’s Upgrade Assistant). This tool automates much of the migration process, updating project structures, dependencies, and configuration settings.
• Manual migration. If the Upgrade Assistant cannot fully handle your project’s complexity, you’ll need to manually update project files, dependencies, and platform-specific implementations.

Regardless of the method chosen, some manual adjustments will still be required due to differences in how .NET MAUI handles UI rendering, dependency management, and platform-specific code.

However, suppose your app heavily relies on custom renderers, complex platform-specific integrations, or older Xamarin plugins. In that case, you may need to rework or even completely rebuild your application to take advantage of .NET MAUI’s modern architecture.

Reworking is a balanced approach between a simple replatforming and a full rebuild. It allows developers to modernize the architecture, improve maintainability, and optimize performance while preserving most of the existing functionality. This method is ideal for applications that need to draw on .NET MAUI’s improved architecture but don’t require a complete rewrite.

Reworking goes beyond a direct migration and introduces several architectural and performance optimizations, including:

• Single-project structure for simplified code management. Unlike Xamarin.Forms, which required separate projects for iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows, .NET MAUI merges them into a single project. This reduces code duplication and makes platform-specific adjustments easier to manage.
• Optimized UI rendering. Xamarin.Forms used Custom Renderers to customize UI elements for each platform, but .NET MAUI introduces Handlers, which are more lightweight and efficient. Reworking the code to use Handlers instead of Custom Renderers significantly improves performance and maintainability.
• Enhanced dependency injection. .NET MAUI fully integrates with Dependency Injection, a programming technique that allows for cleaner separation of concerns. This makes it easier to manage application logic across multiple platforms. This allows developers to decouple business logic from UI components, making the app more maintainable.
• Adopting graphics APIs for advanced UI effects. MAUI introduces new graphics APIs, allowing developers to create custom animations, shadows, gradients, and vector graphics with better performance than Xamarin’s SkiaSharp or third-party libraries.

Reworking is ideal if your Xamarin app:

• Has performance issues due to inefficient UI rendering or navigation logic.
• Uses outdated custom renderers, which can be replaced with modern Handlers.
• Needs a simplified project structure to improve maintainability.
• Relies on third-party plugins, which can be replaced with built-in .NET MAUI features.

However, if your Xamarin app suffers from legacy architecture, significant technical debt, or UI/UX limitations, a full rebuild may be a better approach.

If your Xamarin app is burdened with technical debt, outdated dependencies, or inflexible architecture, a full rebuild may be the best path forward. This approach ensures your application is optimized for cross-platform performance, scalability, and maintainability.

A full rebuild allows you to choose a modern, scalable architecture from the ground up. While Xamarin.Forms mainly relied on MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel), .NET MAUI also supports MVU (Model-View-Update), which can lead to more reactive, flexible UIs with better state management.

A full rebuild allows for modernizing the UI using .NET MAUI’s native controls, styles, and graphics APIs instead of outdated or third-party solutions like SkiaSharp or Xamarin.Forms’ custom renderers.

However, one of the most compelling reasons for a full rebuild is the ability to reuse Blazor components within .NET MAUI (a so-called hybrid Blazor approach), which, based on our experience, allows up to 90% code reuse and seamless web and mobile experiences.

Rebuilding from scratch suits applications with complex architectures, legacy code, or long-term business growth plans. While it requires more effort upfront, this approach ensures a future-proof, high-performance, and scalable application that fully benefits from .NET MAUI’s architecture.

As businesses consider migrating to .NET MAUI, many concerns and misconceptions may arise. Some companies worry about stability, performance, and long-term viability, while others hesitate due to past experiences with Xamarin. Let’s address these concerns and separate facts from fiction.

One of the biggest concerns for businesses is whether Microsoft will continue supporting .NET MAUI in the long run. Many companies hesitate to adopt it, worrying that, like Xamarin, it could eventually be phased out or replaced by another technology. However, Microsoft has fully integrated .NET MAUI into the .NET ecosystem, which currently makes it Microsoft’s primary framework for cross-platform development.

Unlike Xamarin, which operated separately, .NET MAUI is now part of Microsoft’s core .NET roadmap, ensuring regular updates and long-term support. It follows the same release cycle as .NET itself, meaning .NET MAUI 8.0 launched alongside .NET 8, and .NET MAUI 9.0 arrived with .NET 9, and so on. This deep integration guarantees its ongoing evolution and stability, making the framework a future-proof choice for cross-platform app development.

At the onset of .NET MAUI, some developers and companies have expressed concerns about the stability of the framework for large-scale enterprise applications. It was criticized as a half-baked product rushed out the door too soon. These concerns often stemmed from the relatively recent introduction of .NET MAUI and the need for further maturation and stabilization of the platform.

While .NET MAUI is indeed a new framework, it has been continuously improved since its release in 2022. .NET 8 brought significant performance enhancements, bug fixes, and new features. And the recent release of .NET 9 enhanced the framework’s performance, reliability, and introduced some of the top requested features (e.g., deeper integrations for desktop and mobile applications).

Many enterprises and top-tier apps are already running on .NET MAUI, which, in turn, proves its maturity and reliability. For instance, the DigiD app is built with .NET MAUI and is used by Dutch citizens for government services and has millions of downloads. Companies like Uno Platform, Syncfusion, and Telerik have also invested in .NET MAUI support to provide enterprise-grade components and UI solutions.

When .NET MAUI was just released, some developers expressed concerns about performance overhead and larger app sizes compared to fully native applications. These concerns were valid, as early versions of .NET MAUI introduced additional dependencies and runtime components, increasing app size and memory usage.

However, Microsoft has actively worked on performance optimizations with each release, making .NET MAUI increasingly efficient. Starting from .NET MAUI 8, the framework supports Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation, trimming, and native bindings, ensuring performance close to native applications.

Another myth is that third-party libraries built for Xamarin won’t work in .NET MAUI. While not all Xamarin libraries have migrated, many key providers (Syncfusion, Telerik, SkiaSharp) already support .NET MAUI. Additionally, .NET MAUI uses .NET 8, meaning it can use modern NuGet packages. In fact, the framework supports 3,550+ ​.NET MAUI NuGet packages and 411K+ ​.NET NuGet packages to​ speed up the development ​process.

To be safe, check if your dependencies already have a .NET MAUI version. If not, you can use Microsoft’s compatibility shims to bridge unsupported libraries temporarily. It allows you to continue using certain Xamarin libraries while gradually transitioning to fully supported .NET MAUI alternatives.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that many popular third-party libraries have already been updated for .NET MAUI, but for those that haven’t, you may need to find suitable replacements or refactor your code accordingly. Consider replacing outdated libraries with native .NET MAUI implementations to ensure long-term maintainability and performance improvements.

So, should you be afraid of migrating the Xamarin project to .NET MAUI?

While .NET MAUI, like any new technology, has its challenges, it is a mature, well-supported framework that is already powering modern enterprise applications. Waiting too long to migrate from Xamarin could leave your application vulnerable to compatibility issues, higher costs, and security risks.

Migrating from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI requires deep expertise in .NET software development (namely for cross-platform development), and cloud infrastructure. And that’s where Leobit comes in.

Leobit brings years of experience and a proven track record in .NET-based solutions, making us the ideal partner for a smooth and efficient migration. Our expertise spans the entire .NET ecosystem, including such Microsoft technologies as .NET, Azure (i.e., Azure AI services), .NET.MAUI, Blazor, and others, which allow us to handle complex migration challenges.

We’ve been having a continuous partnership with Microsoft since 2018, which has resulted in a strong team of over 78 Microsoft-certified engineers who are well-versed in the latest advancements in .NET MAUI and have hands-on experience transitioning legacy Xamarin applications to modern cross-platform frameworks.

Whether you need a straightforward replatforming, a structured rework, or a full rebuild, Leobit can provide you with .NET MAUI development services, including strategic guidance and hands-on support to make your migration seamless and cost-effective.

Here is the most recent example of Xamarin replacement.

Our customer is a US-based company that helps multi-unit franchise businesses efficiently manage daily operations and report issues across multiple locations. To expand the functionality of their SaaS platform, the client aimed to launch a dedicated cross-platform application tailored to the needs of franchise managers and employees.

We originally developed a cross-platform application using Xamarin. However, with Xamarin reaching end-of-life, Leobit migrated the application to .NET MAUI to ensure long-term maintainability, improved performance, and access to modern development tools.

We chose the reworking approach, carefully adapting the existing codebase to .NET MAUI’s architecture while preserving the app’s core functionality. The migration involved updating dependencies, refactoring code to align with MAUI’s new architecture, and redesigning specific UI components to use MAUI’s enhanced styling and layout capabilities.

Thanks to the transition, page load times were reduced by 50%. For more details, see our Franchise Operations SaaS Platform case study.

With Xamarin reaching end-of-life, the best way to ensure your app remains functional and future-proof is to migrate to its successor, .NET MAUI. When .NET MAUI was released in 2022, it was still rather rough, which led to misconceptions about its performance and ability to support large-scale applications.

However, Microsoft has continuously improved the framework, and the latest releases have brought better stability, enhanced UI capabilities, and a more streamlined development experience. With ongoing support, an active developer community, and deep integration into the .NET ecosystem, .NET MAUI is now a stable and reliable framework for cross-platform development.

Leobit has been working with .NET MAUI since its inception, gaining deep expertise in its capabilities and best practices. We can help you evaluate your project’s specific needs, determine the best migration approach, and help you choose between .NET MAUI, Flutter, or React Native to ensure you use the most suitable technology stack.

Delaying migration, however, comes with risks such as app store rejections, security vulnerabilities, rising future costs, and growing technical debt. The longer you wait, the more challenging and expensive the transition will become. So contact us today, and let’s future-proof your application together!