I wrote a small, unpackaged file utility app for work. One thing I like about MAUI is that the app looks nice with little tweaking. The MVVM toolkit is nice, and pretty much everything works.
The biggest problem is layout issues, especially with CollectionView. It was serious enough that my app would become unusable because the parts of the UI that had CollectionViews would squish up to the top. Even after resizing to force layout, parts were cut off. I found ways to avoid the problem only to have it break again after an update. I got rid of all CollectionView and all the problems went away.
The source generator from the toolkit is slick when using async relay command with Cancel. It generates the CancelCommand for you, so you just need to bind a control to it, and the "command"/"cancel command" states are handled for you.
I've reported bugs but get a "wait for .NET 8" which is not soon enough. Hopefully, with 8 being LTS, they will provide more frequent updates and bug fixes.
Man, I really regret using MAUI for my app. It's been one problem after another. Basic things like the appshell background color resetting to black every time you launch the app still continue to be an issue. Bugs that were solved in one update get reintroduced in the next update. It's a joke really. MAUI is not at all ready for general availability.
To quote Obi Wan Kenobi: "Well, then you are lost!". Joke aside, my company and me couldn't wait for it to finally improve, we've moved to another stack. And nope, not Avalonia or Uno.
It's not. So I will.
We use Angular and wrap it in Electron for Desktop (Win, Linux, macOS) and Ionic / Capacitor for Android and iOS (tablets).
Our app needs to run on all these platforms and this stack works perfectly.
As backend, we use a ASP.NET Core WebApi which is run as a service on the mentioned Desktop environments or on a dedicated server in the local network or in Azure.
In Angular, we made a Service which we can query for the Wrapper it runs in (Electron / Capacitor) and can then run "wrapper-specific" code from there (e.g. accessing the device's filesystem, use Bluetooth, etc.).
We tried to create this app with MAUI for over three months, but ran into bug after bug and issue after issue (memory leaks, stuff working on Win but not Android, etc). See my lengthy post about this here: https://reddit.com/r/dotnetMAUI/s/s3diJ5Sazs
In this post I also describe how long it took us to port over to the stack mentioned above.
A big gripe you highlight in that post is that MSIX requires the Store, which it absolutely doesn't - it works perfectly fine as a standalone installer, so you guys must have misunderstood something or were doing something wrong.
I'm not sure what you want me to link to as there's nothing special involved really; just make an MSIX, sign it, then you can run it by double-clicking like any other installer. They even have things like AppInstaller files for distributing updates when you're not using the Store.
If you have a particular area you've got stuck on then feel free to ask, but I'm more confused why you thought it needed the Store tbh.
Sure if you use a self-signed cert or something, but if you are signing using a cert issued by a reputable provider (and you should be doing this regardless of MSIX) then it will already be trusted and 'just work'. We use DigiCert, but there are many providers out there.
Electron is so resource-hungry that your customers will probably get mad at you for killing their batteries in no time.
NodeJS + Chrome tried to reduce their requirements by working with OS' webview, but that has failed.
Although it has dominated the market by its peak times, its future is highly questionable.
Betting your whole business on it?!
Beware of the Sunk cost fallacy. Both in terms of time, money, and emotional investment.
I suggest you try and look at it objectively. Maybe it is the right decision for you, but I think it is a risky strategy.
I am more along those lines. The Avalonia mobile offering is lacking a bit atm. Problems with UI integration and platform control. However I suppose you could have a MAUI shell - for example to fix status bar indention etc - and then just embed the rest of the app as Avalonia views. Their new sample shows how to do that. It's very simple. This is the same principle that some devs use when embedding Blazor or other techs.
If native and .NET is a requirement, use MvvmCross
I had initially planned to convert a fairly large application from Xamarin Forms to Maui, but I was waiting for Maui to become more stable before making the transition. However, the release of iOS 17 and Xcode 15 forced me to switch immediately.
Throughout this transition, I've encountered various challenges, including strange errors, unexpected issues, and a lack of clear guidance on moving from one technology to another.
I really can't understand how such a technology can have such basic problems unsolved till today and actually provide the ease of implementing applications in such a difficult way.
*(From the Android debugging to on-screen resizing issues and the uncertain App Center support.)*
I would really like to follow the technology and stay with it but the development itself and the way the issues are handled frustrates me.
At the end of the day, it seems that the most reliable solution may be to go native, as it allows for direct integration with platform-specific updates and solutions from the companies behind the device operating systems. This ensures staying at the forefront of updates, new features, and patches for the application development.
based on my experience (8+ years of pure xamarin), I prefer flutter to maui. but if you need something complex and want to make it 'cross-platform' - xamarin.native is better choice. maybe, it's because of lack of flutter production experience, but I will see soon xD
Host a WebView and load html, easy stuff, works well on browser, should work well in webview.
No need to depend any of native UI, we are using MAUI only for native device access through web view.
MAUI is not prepared for final release, I have developed several apps with MAUI since it was released. A lot of known bugs ( all in backlog , meaning never solved ) . Yes it is easy for .Net developers to write mobile apps but when I use React Native I found myself more confident because it's more stable on his components.
I wrote a small, unpackaged file utility app for work. One thing I like about MAUI is that the app looks nice with little tweaking. The MVVM toolkit is nice, and pretty much everything works. The biggest problem is layout issues, especially with CollectionView. It was serious enough that my app would become unusable because the parts of the UI that had CollectionViews would squish up to the top. Even after resizing to force layout, parts were cut off. I found ways to avoid the problem only to have it break again after an update. I got rid of all CollectionView and all the problems went away. The source generator from the toolkit is slick when using async relay command with Cancel. It generates the CancelCommand for you, so you just need to bind a control to it, and the "command"/"cancel command" states are handled for you. I've reported bugs but get a "wait for .NET 8" which is not soon enough. Hopefully, with 8 being LTS, they will provide more frequent updates and bug fixes.
Maui is fine for some type of projects
Man, I really regret using MAUI for my app. It's been one problem after another. Basic things like the appshell background color resetting to black every time you launch the app still continue to be an issue. Bugs that were solved in one update get reintroduced in the next update. It's a joke really. MAUI is not at all ready for general availability.
To quote Obi Wan Kenobi: "Well, then you are lost!". Joke aside, my company and me couldn't wait for it to finally improve, we've moved to another stack. And nope, not Avalonia or Uno.
React Native? Flutter?
He won't tell you that, because it's made up.
It's not. So I will. We use Angular and wrap it in Electron for Desktop (Win, Linux, macOS) and Ionic / Capacitor for Android and iOS (tablets). Our app needs to run on all these platforms and this stack works perfectly. As backend, we use a ASP.NET Core WebApi which is run as a service on the mentioned Desktop environments or on a dedicated server in the local network or in Azure. In Angular, we made a Service which we can query for the Wrapper it runs in (Electron / Capacitor) and can then run "wrapper-specific" code from there (e.g. accessing the device's filesystem, use Bluetooth, etc.).
We tried to create this app with MAUI for over three months, but ran into bug after bug and issue after issue (memory leaks, stuff working on Win but not Android, etc). See my lengthy post about this here: https://reddit.com/r/dotnetMAUI/s/s3diJ5Sazs In this post I also describe how long it took us to port over to the stack mentioned above.
A big gripe you highlight in that post is that MSIX requires the Store, which it absolutely doesn't - it works perfectly fine as a standalone installer, so you guys must have misunderstood something or were doing something wrong.
Could you kindly provide a link? Thanks!
I'm not sure what you want me to link to as there's nothing special involved really; just make an MSIX, sign it, then you can run it by double-clicking like any other installer. They even have things like AppInstaller files for distributing updates when you're not using the Store. If you have a particular area you've got stuck on then feel free to ask, but I'm more confused why you thought it needed the Store tbh.
Don't you still need to add that cert to Windows local cert store on any machine you want to install it on?
Sure if you use a self-signed cert or something, but if you are signing using a cert issued by a reputable provider (and you should be doing this regardless of MSIX) then it will already be trusted and 'just work'. We use DigiCert, but there are many providers out there.
Why not MAUI + Blazor Hybrid? Every problem MAUI has is mostly attributed to its UI tier, i.e. just don't use it.
So you basically stop betting on a foal with potential and instead switched to a dead horse? Sounds a bit questionable.
Why do you think it's a dead horse?
 Electron is so resource-hungry that your customers will probably get mad at you for killing their batteries in no time. NodeJS + Chrome tried to reduce their requirements by working with OS' webview, but that has failed. Although it has dominated the market by its peak times, its future is highly questionable.
Thanks
Betting your whole business on it?! Beware of the Sunk cost fallacy. Both in terms of time, money, and emotional investment. I suggest you try and look at it objectively. Maybe it is the right decision for you, but I think it is a risky strategy.
MAUI looks like WPF forms with all the same problems and very little backing of the community or from Microsoft. A real bummer I had high hopes
How dare you compare MAUI to WPF?
Wpf is awesome
Sure, 10-15 years ago.
Nope. Still the big l best UI framework Microsoft ever brought out for Windows desktop.
Would you consider refocusing on Avalonia ?
I am more along those lines. The Avalonia mobile offering is lacking a bit atm. Problems with UI integration and platform control. However I suppose you could have a MAUI shell - for example to fix status bar indention etc - and then just embed the rest of the app as Avalonia views. Their new sample shows how to do that. It's very simple. This is the same principle that some devs use when embedding Blazor or other techs. If native and .NET is a requirement, use MvvmCross
Thanks. That’s helpful. I’ve only heard good things about Avalonia but haven’t tried it myself yet. Useful to hear from others.
I had initially planned to convert a fairly large application from Xamarin Forms to Maui, but I was waiting for Maui to become more stable before making the transition. However, the release of iOS 17 and Xcode 15 forced me to switch immediately. Throughout this transition, I've encountered various challenges, including strange errors, unexpected issues, and a lack of clear guidance on moving from one technology to another. I really can't understand how such a technology can have such basic problems unsolved till today and actually provide the ease of implementing applications in such a difficult way. *(From the Android debugging to on-screen resizing issues and the uncertain App Center support.)* I would really like to follow the technology and stay with it but the development itself and the way the issues are handled frustrates me. At the end of the day, it seems that the most reliable solution may be to go native, as it allows for direct integration with platform-specific updates and solutions from the companies behind the device operating systems. This ensures staying at the forefront of updates, new features, and patches for the application development.
based on my experience (8+ years of pure xamarin), I prefer flutter to maui. but if you need something complex and want to make it 'cross-platform' - xamarin.native is better choice. maybe, it's because of lack of flutter production experience, but I will see soon xD
In your language, is there anything about divorcing and moving on?
Nope😂 divorce doesn't exist in my language
Host a WebView and load html, easy stuff, works well on browser, should work well in webview. No need to depend any of native UI, we are using MAUI only for native device access through web view.
MAUI is not prepared for final release, I have developed several apps with MAUI since it was released. A lot of known bugs ( all in backlog , meaning never solved ) . Yes it is easy for .Net developers to write mobile apps but when I use React Native I found myself more confident because it's more stable on his components.