FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Avalonia Project

Avalonia UI is free to use and has been open-source (MIT licensed) since its inception. The code is available to download on GitHub and packages on Nuget.

MAUI is an evolution of Xamarin.Forms, enabling developers to create applications using a unified API using the platforms underlying native UI toolkit. Think of it as an abstraction over the operating systems existing UI controls; thus, Xamarin.Forms can only provide the lowest common denominator of UI controls and APIs available on the supported platforms. In contrast, Avalonia UI is an entire UI toolkit in its own right, responsible for rendering every pixel of the UI. This approach is closer to how Google's Flutter UI framework has been designed and offers numerous benefits, including pixel-perfect apps across every platform and a simplified process of supporting new platforms. Learn more about the benefits on our our blog.

Avalonia UI is maintained by a vibrant community of developers with contributions from hundreds of developers. The 'core' team consists of approximately ~20 developers who have worked on the project for several years.

Avalonia UI was initially published to GitHub in 2013, though its original name was Perspect.

Avalonia UI being open-source, allows anyone to contribute to the project's future. We have a long list of features we're excited to implement to help us achieve our goal of creating the best UI framework for .NET development.

While the project historically didn't need funding given its open-source nature, we began providing commercial support agreements and development services in response to increasing demand from enterprises developing with Avalonia UI.

Avalonia XPF

Avalonia XPF is based on WPF shipped with .NET 6.0 SDK. For WPF apps that are using older versions of .NET, we recommend upgrading to .NET 6 or .NET 7.

Yes. Libraries that don't use any Win32 APIs should work without modification. For libraries that do use Win32 APIs, we are developing a solution to enable a subset of Win32 APIs to work across supported platforms.

Yes. Many controls from the most popular UI control vendors are supported without modification in Avalonia XPF.

Yes. Avalonia XPF has partial support for controls developed with WinForms. However, we do not provide a solution for apps developed entirely with WinForms.

No. Avalonia XPF is not open-source, and its source code is not freely available.

Avalonia XPF is a commercial solution to reduce the costs and risks involved in modernising existing enterprise WPF applications. We recommend that OSS maintainers consider modernising their projects with Avalonia UI to enable wider adoption and community engagement.

Avalonia UI will stay free and open-source, continuing to see new features and many updates. Avalonia XPF is a premium product designed for businesses, with the revenue going towards funding the development of our OSS projects, including Avalonia UI.

Avalonia XPF is licensed per app, per platform, with a perpetual license and optional upgrades after one-year. There are no limitations to distribution.

Many applications can run on Avalonia XPF with zero modifications outside of changing the project SDK. We are developing an analyser to enable you to understand your app's compatibility with XPF.

Yes. Web Assembly and Mobile platforms will be supported in 2024.

Yes. We are happy to create bespoke license agreements for enterprises with several applications.

Support

If you need support with guarantees around response times and want to work directly with the core team, then consider subscribing to one of our support agreements. Alternatively, you can engage our vast community of OSS developers by creating issues on GitHub or joining the chat on Telegram.

Yes. However, we recommend you investigate using Avalonia XPF, which enables running WPF applications on macOS and Linux with almost no modifications.

We offer both virtual and onsite training for up to 15 people. Please get in touch with us for more details.

Billing

Please get in touch with your account manager as soon as possible so that we can investigate.

We don't offer student and OSS discounts at this time. If you need support, then you should engage our vast community.

No. We do not accept PayPal payments.

Subscriptions are for a minimum of 12 months. Contact your account manager to discuss cancellation.

Yes. We offer discounts for large support subscriptions. Contact us to discuss your needs.


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