We chose to stick with WPF at work some years ago due to developing for Windows systems exclusively. Seeing the development still going into Avalonia is making me feel a bit like the grass might be greener over there.
Does anyone have experience with app deployment in a form similar to ClickOnce deployment using it?
Oh boy, now I need to find a new excuse to procrastinate on the project I want to start using Avalonia.
I’ve started to see Avalonia UI pushed hard on multiple fronts. Does anyone know the reason why? Microsoft is rolling out WinUI 3, and I would expect that to gather all the attention.
Well, for starters, WinUI 3 is Windows only (correct me if I’m wrong), while Avalonia supports Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS and WebAssembly.
The cross-platform solution that Microsoft advocates for is MAUI, which doesn’t support Linux. And it uses native controls, meaning you may encounter platform-specific bugs, while Avalonia renders the controls the same way everywhere using Skia (same approach with Flutter).
WinUI 3 is essentially boring. If you’re seeing any avalonia content, it’'s pretty much just community interest, because they have no marketing department that I know of. There’s just avaloniaui_mike who makes the occasional reddit post about some cool new thing they implemented.
WinUI 3 is essentially boring.
I don’t think that’s a good or fair assumption. Avalonia started as WPF on platforms other than Windows, which by your measuring stick would mean it’s more boring than the stuff WinUI3 is planned to replace. WinUI3 is also not here yet, so the only sense where it should be boring is if it just works unsurprisingly.
Also, I don’t think that the assumption that Avalonia is pushed organically holds water as well. Avalonia UI is pushed by a for-profit company that went public in 2019 and among its services it sells paid support, custom development, and even licensing for Avalonia XPF.
Boring is subjective. I don’t find it interesting. I’ve never seen a dev who find it interesting beyond “oh uwp is dead, I guess I should port my app over”. It doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table that I know of. If you think it does, I’m listening.
I’m not sure what you mean by my yardstick here. I do find avalonia interesting.
Also both of avalonia’s paid products are b2b and my proof is only anecdotal, but I find it unlikely you’ll see any paid advertising for it on reddit or threadiverse. That’s all.
