.NET MAUI, Flutter, Avalonia, or React Native: Which is Best for You?

TL;DR: Explore an overview of four leading cross-platform app development frameworks: .NET MAUI, Flutter, Avalonia, and React Native. Discover their strengths and weaknesses across supported platforms, rendering, performance, UI customization, and more. Learn why the “best” framework depends on your specific project needs and developer expertise, not a one-size-fits-all ranking.

In the ever-evolving world of app development, the demand for building powerful, scalable, and visually rich applications across multiple platforms has never been higher. But with so many frameworks vying for the spotlight, how do you choose the right one?

Enter .NET MAUI, Flutter, Avalonia, and React Native, four of the most talked-about contenders in the cross-platform arena. Each promises seamless performance, native capabilities, and faster development cycles, but they all approach these goals in surprisingly different ways.

We’re about to unravel the strengths and quirks of each framework, so you can make an informed decision not based on hype, but on facts and fit.

Ready to find out which one deserves a place in your development toolkit?

Let’s start with the supported platforms of each framework.

Although the above table provides a clear overview of where each framework excels at platform compatibility, the actual choice goes deeper. The “best” framework is based on your project’s specific requirements:

1. Are you looking for pixel-perfect UI and consistency?
2. Does your team already have experience with C#, JavaScript, or Dart?
3. Will you require official web or Linux support?
4. How important is native performance, hot reload, or third-party library access?

Every one of these frameworks, .NET MAUI, Flutter, Avalonia, and React Native, applies its vision to cross-platform development. Some rely on language familiarity, some on rendering engine, and others on brute ecosystem strength.

Instead of thinking about it in terms of what’s “best”, think of it as what’s “best for you”.

.NET MAUI

.NET MAUI is an evolution of Xamarin.Forms, a cross-platform framework, designed by Microsoft to build native mobile and desktop applications from a single codebase.

The first stable public release of .NET MAUI was in May 2022, as part of .NET 6. It is an open-source framework under the .NET Foundation.

Rendering

.NET MAUI uses native UI components on each platform through the new handler-based architecture.

Note: Compared to Xamarin.Forms’ renderers, handlers are lighter, and easier to customize.

Why choose .NET MAUI?

Single project structure

MAUI uses one unified project for all platforms. You don’t need to manage multiple codebases; everything is organized in one place.

Native performance

It uses native UI controls, so your app looks and feels like a true native app on each platform, with fast performance and a smooth experience.

Hot reload

Make changes to your UI and see them instantly, with no need for full rebuilds. This speeds up development and testing.

MVVM & MVU support

.NET MAUI supports MVVM and MVU patterns, so you can choose the architecture that best fits your team or project.

Access to native APIs

Need platform-specific features? You can easily access native APIs using dependency injection, while sharing most of your code.

Blazor integration

You can embed Blazor web apps inside MAUI, making it easy to reuse existing web components in mobile or desktop apps.

Where .NET MAUI currently falls short

While .NET MAUI offers many advantages, there are some limitations to consider:

Native look and feel, with offs

You get a true native experience and better accessibility, but it comes at the cost of performance overhead compared to frameworks like Flutter.

Slower performance

Because MAUI uses native control abstraction, it’s generally slower than Flutter, especially in UI-heavy or highly dynamic apps.

Limited hot reload

Hot Reload is supported, but not always reliable. Sometimes you still need a full rebuild, which can slow down development.

Younger ecosystem

MAUI is still growing. It has fewer third-party libraries and plugins than mature frameworks like Flutter or React Native.

Platform-specific bugs

Since MAUI uses native controls, you may run into inconsistent behavior across platforms. Some controls may look or act differently on iOS, Android, or Windows.

Flutter

Flutter is Google’s open-source UI toolkit for building natively compiled cross-platform apps for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, web, and Linux from a single codebase.

The first stable public release of Flutter was in May 2017.

Rendering

Unlike frameworks that rely on native UI components (like .NET MAUI or React Native), Flutter does not use native components. Instead, it renders everything from scratch using its own Skia (now Impeller) graphics engine.

Why choose Flutter?

Single codebase, multiple platforms

Write your app once in Dart, and deploy it to Android, iOS, web, Windows, macOS, and Linux, all from one project.

High performance

Thanks to Dart’s Ahead-of-Time compilation, Flutter apps run with near-native speed, delivering smooth UI and fast interactions.

Expressive and customizable UI

Flutter gives you rich, built-in widgets and full control over your UI. You can design pixel-perfect interfaces with smooth animations and transitions.

Hot Reload and hot restart

Flutter’s h ot reload instantly reflects changes in your app without restarting, making development faster and more interactive.

Vast ecosystem

With over 20,000 packages on the pub.dev repository, Flutter has libraries for everything from Firebase and state management to payment gateways and device features.

Top-tier documentation

Flutter’s documentation is comprehensive , clear, and constantly updated , perfect for beginners and experienced devs alike.

Where Flutter currently falls short

No native UI controls

Flutter renders its own UI, which means it doesn’t use platform-native components. While this ensures consistency, it can lead to apps feeling less “native” in behavior, especially for accessibility or OS-integrated features.

Larger app size

Due to the built-in rendering engine and framework overhead, Flutter apps tend to be larger in file size compared to native apps or frameworks like React Native.

Limited native integration

Accessing platform-specific features like Bluetooth or, background services can be more complex and sometimes requires writing custom platform channels in Kotlin or Swift.

Evolving desktop & web support

While all platforms are production-ready, desktop and web are still maturing. There may be limitations or bugs when targeting these platforms, especially with more complex UIs.

Plugin quality varies

While there’s a rich ecosystem, not all plugins are well-maintained or fully cross-platform. You may run into issues or need to write custom solutions.

Limited hot reload

Hot reload primarily updates the Dart code and rebuilds the widget tree. Changes to native code, adding new assets, or certain structural code modifications might require a hot restart (which restarts the Dart VM and rebuilds the app state) or a full restart (which recompiles the entire application).

Flutter web currently supports hot restart but not hot reload.

Avalonia

Avalonia is a cross-platform, open-source UI framework for building .NET-based application. It supports building desktop and embedded UI applications with native performance and consistent appearance across platforms.

Avalonia is often considered the WPF for cross-platform desktop development. It is maintained by the open-source community with commercial backing via AvaloniaUI.

Its initial commit was made in 2013, when it was called Perspex. In 2016, Perspex became Avalonia.

Rendering

Avalonia doesn’t rely on native UI widgets. Instead, it uses its own custom-drawn controls, rendered primarily with Skia. This ensures pixel-perfect consistency across platforms. On Windows, Direct2D is the default rendering backend for performance, with Skia as a fallback. On other platforms like macOS, Linux and mobile, Skia remains the primary renderer. Avalonia also supports GPU-accelerated rendering via Vulkan and Metal, where available.

Why choose Avalonia?

Single codebase

Write your app using XAML and C# once and run it on multiple platforms.

MVVM first-class support

Avalonia is built with MVVM in mind, offering strong data binding, observable properties, and clean separation of UI and logic.

Custom rendering engine

Instead of relying on native UI components, Avalonia uses Skia, ensuring pixel-perfect, consistent rendering across all platforms.

Highly customizable UI

Design your app exactly how you want it. Avalonia gives you full control over styles, control templates, and themes.

Hot reload

Enjoy .NET hot reload for C# and XAML hot reload, so you can tweak UI or logic and see changes live without restarting your app.

Rich set of desktop controls

Avalonia includes powerful desktop UI controls like DataGrid, TreeView, DockPanel, and more, perfect for business, admin, and utility apps.

Functional UI with Avalonia.FuncUI

Prefer F# or React-style declarative UIs? Avalonia supports functional programming via Avalonia.FuncUI, a community-driven library offering a model like Elmish or React with composable, state-driven components.

Where Avalonia currently falls short

No native UI controls

Avalonia doesn’t use platform-native controls. It relies on its custom Skia-based rendering. This offers consistency, but apps may not feel native, especially in OS-integrated areas like accessibility or native dialogs.

Limited mobile support

While Avalonia’s desktop support is robust, its mobile (Android and iOS) support is newly stable and production ready. However, it may lack the performance optimizations and ecosystem depth of native frameworks or Flutter.

Smaller ecosystem

Compared to mature frameworks like MAUI or Flutter, Avalonia has a smaller community and fewer third-party libraries, which might require more custom development.

Fewer platform integrations

Because it doesn’t tap directly into native APIs, features like notifications, sensors, or OS-specific services require manual implementation or are not fully supported.

Tooling still evolving

While tooling has improved, the XAML designer and hot reload features aren’t as mature or stable as those in MAUI or WPF. Some features may feel incomplete or inconsistent depending on your IDE.

Deployment complexity

Cross-platform deployment especially on Linux and macOS, can involve extra setup or packaging hurdles, particularly for new developers.

React native

React Native is Meta’s open-source framework for building native cross-platform apps using a single JavaScript or TypeScript codebase. Unlike hybrid frameworks, it compiles to native UI components.

The first stable release was in March 2015.

Rendering

React Native still uses native platform components under the hood like e.g., UIView on iOS or ViewGroup on Android, bridged via JavaScript or TypeScript. This ensures apps follow platform-specific design and behavior, though performance hinges on the JavaScript-to-native bridge. Recent updates like the new architecture (TurboModules and Fabric) reduce bridge overhead by enabling direct C++ communication for critical components.

Why choose React native?

Single codebase, multiple platforms

Write your app once in JavaScript or TypeScript and deploy it to multiple platforms.

Near-native performance

By leveraging native components and optimizations like the Hermes JS engine and Fabric renderer, React Native delivers smooth performance that is close to pure native apps.

Native UI and behavior

Apps blend seamlessly with OS conventions like iOS scroll physics and Android Material Design since they use platform-native widgets.

Fast refresh

Instantly see changes during development without losing app state similar to hot Reload but with JavaScript constraints.

Massive ecosystem

There are 50,000+ libraries (NPM and Yarn) for everything, state management, navigation, and native modules.

Where React Native currently falls short

Bridge performance bottlenecks

The JavaScript-Native bridge can cause latency in complex animations or heavy computations though mitigated by JSI and Fabric in the new architecture.

Native code dependency

Advanced features like Bluetooth and background tasks often require writing native code (Swift or Kotlin) or relying on unstable third-party plugins.

Inconsistent UI across platforms

While native components ensure OS consistency, styling differences like shadows and fonts may require platform-specific code.

Larger app size than Native

JavaScript runtime and bundled libraries increase app size, though less than Flutter with no built-in rendering engine.

JavaScript limitations

Dynamic typing can lead to runtime errors, though TypeScript helps.

The single-threaded JS can bottleneck performance.

Plugin quality & maintenance

Many third-party plugins are abandoned or lack cross-platform support, forcing custom native implementations.

Fast refresh limitations

Fast refresh doesn’t work with native code changes which requires full rebuilds. The state may reset unpredictably during complex updates.

Conclusion

Here’s a summary of all the frameworks.

The choice is in your hands, since none of the frameworks offer all benefits. Your decision depends on your requirements, scope, application complexity and target audience.

Once more, it’s not about determining which option is “best,” but what’s “best for you”. Happy coding!

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This article was originally published at Syncfusion.com.