I'm building a desktop application for a friend's business and currently learning Avalonia UI. I already have some experience with C#, .NET MVC, and ASP.NET, and I've completed the temperature conversion example from Avalonia's official documentation. However, I'm having trouble finding enough tutorials and project-based learning material. Which desktop framework would you recommend, and would another programming language be a better choice? Cross-platform support would be useful, but I'm also open to a Windows-only solution.
2 Answers
The main decision is whether the application really needs to run on Windows, macOS, and Linux. If Windows-only is acceptable, WPF is probably the easiest choice for someone with your C# and .NET background. It has much better documentation, more examples, and more community support than Avalonia. Avalonia is useful for cross-platform applications, but its tooling and learning resources can sometimes make development more frustrating.
You could also consider a web-based desktop approach, such as Tauri or Electron, especially if cross-platform support is important. Web technologies have a huge amount of learning material, although the user experience may feel less native. Electron can use more memory because it bundles a browser engine, while Tauri is generally lighter, so it may be worth comparing both before deciding.
That makes sense. I was mainly considering Avalonia so I could describe the project as cross-platform desktop development in my portfolio, but I may switch to WPF for this application.