Question 1

Why use Avalonia?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia lets you build beautiful, high-performance apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and Web using a single codebase in .NET. It combines modern graphics rendering with a familiar XAML and MVVM architecture, making it easy for WPF developers to go cross-platform without compromise. Avalonia offers full control over the UI, excellent tooling, and a growing ecosystem, all while staying open source and community-driven.

Question 2

Who owns Avalonia?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia is developed and maintained by AvaloniaUI OÜ, a commercial entity established in 2019 to support the growing enterprise adoption of the framework. The company is bootstrapped, profitable, and owned by the core engineering team behind Avalonia. While the project remains fully open source, AvaloniaUI OÜ provides commercial services, sponsorship, and long-term stewardship.

Question 3

Who uses Avalonia?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia is used by companies of all sizes, from startups to global enterprises, across industries including finance, healthcare, aerospace, semiconductors, and developer tooling. Notable users include Autodesk, GitHub, JetBrains, Microsoft, VMware, ARM, AMD, Canon, Siemens, Schneider Electric, NASA, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Unity, EA Games, and many more. Its adoption spans internal tools, commercial applications, running on desktop, mobile, and embedded systems.

Question 4

When was Avalonia released?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia’s first commit was made on 11 December 2013, and it has been in continuous development ever since. Starting in 2025, Avalonia is aligning its release cycle with .NET, major versions will ship in Q4 each year, with quarterly point releases in between. This approach keeps upgrades predictable, smaller in scope, and easier to adopt.

Question 5

What language does Avalonia use?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia applications can be written in any .NET language, including C#, F#, and VB.NET. The framework itself is primarily developed in C#, with small portions in lower-level languages such as Objective-C++ for platform-specific interop on macOS. Developers benefit from full .NET tooling, async/await support, and seamless integration with modern .NET ecosystems.

Question 6

What is Avalonia UI?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia UI is the company behind the open-source Avalonia framework. Founded to support and scale the project commercially, Avalonia UI provides core development, long-term support, commercial tooling, and enterprise services. While the framework is fully open source, Avalonia UI ensures its ongoing development is sustainable and aligned with the needs of professional teams building cross-platform .NET applications.

Question 7

What’s the difference between Avalonia and .NET MAUI?

Accepted Answer

The biggest difference is how UI is rendered. Avalonia draws every pixel using its own GPU-accelerated renderer, giving full control over appearance and behaviour across platforms. .NET MAUI, by contrast, wraps native controls, which can lead to inconsistent UI, behavioural quirks, and platform-specific bugs. Avalonia also supports Linux and Web, while MAUI is mostly focused on mobile.

Question 8

Is Avalonia better than WPF?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia is often seen as the spiritual successor to WPF, modern, cross-platform, and actively developed. It retains the familiar XAML and MVVM patterns but brings GPU-accelerated rendering, styling flexibility, and support for Windows, macOS, Linux, mobile, and Web. If you’re building for multiple platforms, Avalonia is the clear choice. If you’re targeting only Windows and your app relies heavily on legacy WPF features or third-party components, WPF may still be sufficient.

Question 9

Is Avalonia cross platform?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Avalonia is a fully cross-platform UI framework. It supports building applications for Windows, macOS, Linux (including Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch), iOS, Android, Web (via WebAssembly), and embedded systems such as Raspberry Pi. All platforms can be targeted from a single .NET codebase, with consistent appearance and behaviour.

Question 10

Is Avalonia UI free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Avalonia is free and open-source, licensed under MIT. You can build and ship commercial applications without paying anything. Avalonia UI, the company behind the framework, offers optional paid services and tools for teams that need advanced support or productivity features, but the core framework is fully functional and suitable for complex apps without any cost.

Question 11

Does Avalonia support mobile and web?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Avalonia supports both mobile and web platforms. You can build native iOS and Android apps using the same XAML and .NET codebase. For the web, Avalonia compiles to WebAssembly, allowing your app to run directly in the browser without plugins. Both mobile and web support are actively developed and suitable for production use in many scenarios.

Question 12

Can I use Avalonia in commercial applications?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Avalonia can be used freely in commercial applications under the permissive MIT licence. There are no royalties, licensing fees, or usage restrictions. Many companies use Avalonia to build proprietary software, internal tools, and commercial products. Avalonia UI also offers optional support and commercial add-ons for teams that need enterprise-grade capabilities.

Question 13

How stable is Avalonia?

Accepted Answer

Avalonia is stable and production-ready. It has over a decade of development behind it, a growing ecosystem, and is used by major organisations across industries including finance, aerospace, healthcare, and developer tooling. The framework follows a predictable release cycle, with each version undergoing extensive testing across all supported platforms. Teams building mission-critical software rely on Avalonia in production every day.

Question 14

Is Avalonia production ready?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Avalonia is production ready and actively used in commercial software across desktop, mobile, embedded, and web. Companies like GitHub, JetBrains, Siemens, and NASA trust it for real-world applications. It offers strong platform coverage, predictable releases, and professional support options for teams that need them.

Question 15

How does Avalonia compare to Uno Platform?

Accepted Answer

Uno Platform is a reimplementation of WinUI, a UI framework from Microsoft that has failed to gain widespread industry adoption. As a result, Uno inherits the complexity, API surface, and limitations of WinUI, a platform many developers actively avoid. Avalonia, by contrast, was built from the ground up to be cross-platform, performant, and developer-friendly, without being shackled to legacy Windows specific design decisions. The result is a more modern developer experience and a significantly larger, growing community.

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The open-source WPF successor forbuilding beautiful, cross-platform .NET apps.

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Cross-Platform WPF, built for enterprise.

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The open-source WPF successor for
building beautiful, cross-platform .NET apps.

Loved by developers.
Trusted by enterprise.