I'm building an ERP aimed at agriculture and fruit-and-vegetable management companies, and I want to choose a frontend architecture that will remain maintainable as the product grows. The backend will use .NET, but I'm unsure which technology is best for the desktop application. Electron would provide flexibility but adds the complexity of JavaScript, CSS, and an embedded Chromium runtime. Tauri is interesting, although it does not yet feel fully mature to me. WinForms and WPF seem quicker to develop with, but they feel dated and may not be Microsoft's long-term direction. I also expect to need features such as embedded maps, probably through WebView2. Would you build this as a desktop application, and if so, which frontend framework or UI technology would you choose?
2 Answers
Before choosing a framework, it would help to confirm that the final product is definitely intended to be a desktop application rather than a web or mobile app. That decision will narrow the options considerably.
You could also investigate cross-platform UI options such as React Native with Expo or Flutter. They can be useful when mobile support is part of the plan, although they may not be the best fit if your primary target is a Windows desktop ERP.
The current plan is specifically for a desktop frontend, so mobile support is not the main requirement right now.