9 UI Frameworks for .NET Desktop App Development [2024]

The landscape of different user interface frameworks for .NET desktop development offers many choices.

What's great for the ecosystem and experienced developers can be challenging for novices and people getting into .NET from other technologies.

I will provide the most fundamental information about the 9 most common user interface frameworks for .NET desktop app development to help you decide what framework to explore.

00:00 Brilliant Introduction
01:29 Windows Forms (WinForms)
02:49 Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
04:35 Universal Windows Platform Apps (UWP)
06:06 WinUi 3
06:54 Xamarin/Xamarin Forms
08:00 .NET MAUI
09:54 Platform Uno
11:41 Avalonia UI
13:38 Blazor Hybrid
14:24 Conclusion

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[sealsharp]

I work with WinForms a lot and it's got some really heavy flaws:

* It was never made with UI scaling in mind, so all attempts to deal with that are non-perfect.
* It's layout system is designed around bounding boxes which severely limits what can be done visually in terms of transparency, positioning, overlap etc. The event driven architecture does not fit well with animations and it's software rendered.

So, why is it still great?

* it is the UI with the smallest overhead because it's just wrapper classes around windows elements.
* it's visual simplicity around bounding boxes makes it totally fine to be software rendered
* it's software rendered which means it is so easy to custom draw controls and content and it has no complications from remote access.
* it's all C#, no xml no xaml, no javascript, no html, no css required to design a ui.

Winforms is still heavily used in industrial automation because practical application design is constrained in the use of colors (red =error, yellow=warning, green = fine, white|black|grey = neutral) and no one gives a shit about the beauty of a liquid-like mouseover on a beautiful button over an acrylic glass background. WPF never really got to replace WinForms there because the separation of roles (Coders code, designers design XAML) does not exist in that space and because of its simplicity, WinForms has more components available than WPF.
Everything after WPF could not replace WinForms because all the ways to design Windows-APPs creates apps that behave like apps in an app container with minimized access to native resources and minimal control over their own state which makes it impossible to use for an industrial application.

Winforms is and will probably stay the workhorse for a lot of unsexy but useful applications that will never shine on any stage.

[ddMuke]

Thanks for the video. I would recommend adding some sort of separator between video sections for your next video, as to clearly tell the user you will be switching to another UI system

[yourname_]

Excelent video, I was searching for a good UI for Linux and Windows apps, Thanks!

[collynchristopherbrenner]

Solid overview, I appreciate this a lot! I have been attached to using HTML/CSS for front-end but with my choice to code primarily in C# it is looking like Blazor Hybrid MAUI is not ready and that I need to go with XAML, either Avalonia UI or Platform Uno. I appreciate your link to the article as well! About to go read it.

[emmadkareem]

Excellent video. Your video should be viewed for anyone who wants to get into Computer Science!!! The future is <...>!!!!

[allinvanguard]

Great collection. What is your take on Blazor PWA? I'm a web developer, so I don't have much exposure to the desktop field, but I'm curious what the current opinion on desktop PWAs is?

[tmlyrical]

Which I use Avalonia Or Uno ? Beginner ( not recommend easy - i only focusing in future also to get profit and stable on one )

[marna_li]

What is great with Uno is that it is a cross-platform port of WinUI that fills important gaps for the Windows-only technology. Now being able to target other platforms, in particular mobile, with one app platform.

[francoislepron]

I am interested in Uno or Avalonia because I have to develop applications for embedded devices running a Linux OS (Yocto TorizonOS). Uno seems to work pretty well on an arm64 bits processor with a small touchscreen 7''.

[Attni]

Very informative, thank you! Can you use these with Windows Powershell, since it is technically based on .NET?

[ClaudioBernasconi]

What is your preferred UI Framework for .NET desktop application development? 🤔

[adam-xtte]

No sample applications? Why this video exists?

[Gusmdq]

Thank you very much for the video, very very good ;) I would like to ask you, I am a visual basic programmer and I was asked to create a stock management and billing program for the desktop but that can be used from the cell phone. What would be the best Avalonia platform? Or which one do you think is the most appropriate? Kind regards.

[jxndwl]

It worth to mention that Lunacy is powered by Avalonia ! Lunacy is Figma-like graphic design software, which can be run fluently on Avalonia on a Raspberry PI machine! This shows how good performance optimization of Avalonia is against WPF, thanks to the Skia. Chrome, Firefox and more are powered by Skia! AvaloniaUI + Meadow seems a good choice combination for IoT client project runs on embeded Linux device! Hardware grab money faster than software 😃

[DeepWorksStudios]

Maui is definitely not production ready for real world applications that may get more complex than the samples from Microsoft. I’ve been using it since it’s GA Release back 2022 and I’ve been reporting since that day multiple issues. I still got hope but it’s hard to believe this should be used in real world projects at this stage of the framework.

[GuildOfCalamity]

Would love to see you do some WinUI3 tutorials.

[RoadTalksByRizwan]

What a ZOMBIE Accent. DUDE! you forgot to BLINK😂

[ovlgvjh]

Agree MAUI is not production ready. Blazor is good. Avalonia UI is good.

[gofudgeyourselves]

Please do a WinUI3 course with zero to mastery