--- title: ".NET Reviews" meta_title: ".NET Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2" meta_description: Filter 165 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how .NET works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.4 review_count: 165 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-04' parent_category: name: Mobile Development url: https://www.g2.com/categories/mobile-development --- # .NET Reviews **Vendor:** Microsoft **Category:** [Mobile Development Platforms](https://www.g2.com/categories/mobile-development-platforms) **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 165 ## About .NET .NET is a free, open-source, cross-platform framework developed by Microsoft for building modern applications and powerful cloud services. It supports multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and macOS, enabling developers to create a wide range of applications, from web and mobile to desktop and cloud-based solutions. With a unified platform, .NET allows for the use of a single codebase across various application types, enhancing productivity and reducing development time. Key Features and Functionality: - Cross-Platform Development: Develop applications that run seamlessly on Windows, Linux, and macOS. - Unified Codebase: Utilize a single codebase to build native applications for multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. - Cloud Integration: Create scalable and resilient cloud-native applications compatible with major cloud providers. - Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Incorporate AI and ML capabilities into applications using C#, OpenAI, and Azure. - Open Source and Community-Driven: Benefit from a vibrant community with over 100,000 open-source contributions and support from more than 3,700 companies. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: .NET offers a comprehensive and versatile platform that simplifies the development process by allowing developers to use a consistent set of tools and languages across various application types. Its cross-platform nature ensures that applications can reach a broader audience without the need for multiple codebases. The integration with cloud services and support for AI and ML empowers developers to build intelligent, scalable, and high-performance applications. Additionally, being open-source fosters collaboration and continuous improvement, providing developers with a robust and evolving framework for their projects. ## .NET Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **powerful and secure app development** capabilities of .NET, simplifying cross-platform application building. (19 reviews) - Users value the **performance and flexibility** of .NET, enabling efficient application development across platforms. (18 reviews) - Users appreciate the **scalability** of .NET, allowing seamless growth and adaptability across diverse application environments. (12 reviews) - Users appreciate the **efficiency improvements** of .NET, highlighting its performance and productivity in development. (11 reviews) - Users find **ease of use** in .NET due to seamless integration and extensive documentation for simplified development. (10 reviews) - Users value the **cross-platform compatibility** of .NET, enhancing efficiency in mobile app development across devices. (9 reviews) - Users appreciate the **efficiency** of .NET, which streamlines development across multiple platforms and environments. (8 reviews) - Integration Capabilities (8 reviews) - Security (8 reviews) - Users appreciate the **strong documentation** of .NET, making development and troubleshooting much easier. (7 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **steep learning curve** of .NET challenging, especially regarding setup and error resolution for beginners. (17 reviews) - Users find the **high complexity** of .NET challenging, especially regarding dependency management and migrating between framework versions. (16 reviews) - Users find the **complex setup** of .NET challenging, especially beginners facing dependency management and environment configuration. (12 reviews) - Users find a **steep learning curve** for beginners with .NET, making initial setup and understanding challenging. (11 reviews) - Users find the **insufficient guidance** and resources for .NET challenging, resulting in a steep learning curve. (6 reviews) - Slow Performance (6 reviews) - Version Control (6 reviews) - Users experience **high memory usage** with .NET, leading to performance issues and complicating their overall experience. (5 reviews) - Time-Consuming (5 reviews) - Update Issues (5 reviews) ## .NET Reviews ### 1. Developer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Program Development | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 05, 2023 **What do you like best about .NET?** I like that it can be downloaded on iPhone and androids **What do you dislike about .NET?** I don't like how long it takes to download on iOS **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's solving the user end because now it can be used in iOS and android ### 2. Old framework, switching now to FLutter **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Aseem A. | Senior Manager - CRM, Consumer Goods, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 08, 2023 **What do you like best about .NET?** cross platform support is there which enables to make applications across Android, iOS and web **What do you dislike about .NET?** Nothing as such.. it is ok just that more new and new platforms are coming up **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Saving time and money to build applications across multiple platforms ### 3. Cross platform mobile development made easy. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hasitha D. | Associate Software Architect, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 20, 2022 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin is easy to use and developer-friendly toolkit. Most importantly, you can use your existing .Net/C# knowledge without learning a new language or framework. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Xamarin is a capable framework but has its limitations when it comes to platform-specific funtionalities. There can be specific bugs in how precise controls behave. Also, Universal Windows Platform apps are better kept aside. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Xamarin helps us use our existing .Net developers on mobile application development tasks, significantly improving the cost by eliminating the need to hire new mobile developers. ### 4. Xamarin Review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 16, 2022 **What do you like best about .NET?** This is best hybrid approach to build the mobile application for all three is platform like Android,iOS and Uwp. Reusebuilty of the code is most helps alot with low maintenance. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Minimum app size is big mean without any functionality app size is more than 10 MB. And late support of features which is already released by native os. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Make multiple platforms application with in less time that make business growth fast. ### 5. Excellent Cross-Platform **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** SAYYAD H. | IT Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2022 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin provides the best cross-platform to developers, especially .Net Developers. The best thing I like is Xamarin Forms Hot Reload **What do you dislike about .NET?** As a developers, I did not find any downside in Xamarin **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** I built many in house apps, I solved POS E-payment, currently developing E-Commerce App ### 6. Great tool with large community, slow development to release rate. **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Packaging and Containers | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 18, 2021 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin has a large community with extensive support. Native performance is possible with the cross-platform Xamarin forms framework. There is a lot of variety in the learning sources and documentation for Xamarin. A lot of the C# and dotNET code is usable across all platforms. C# solutions have the ability to accommodate multiple projects under one solution which is a very helpful feature. **What do you dislike about .NET?** There is a delay with the support for updates to the specific platforms that Xamarin accommodates. Even though Xamarin is a cross-platform framework, you still need to know the basics of the native programming languages. The sizes of apps are larger in comparison, a simple one-line application can be 10+MB for the inclusion of base class library asssemblies. There are various ui-limitations, UI-elements that you would expect to see are not available. A lot of hacky interventions needed while developing in Xamarin, this includes the IDE and especially UI elements wired up to code. Latest C# versions are not supported by Xamarin, which really limits use of newer features and/or tools. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Currently, Xamarin is being used to solve an issue many development teams have encountered. We have a large mobile platform project that gets worked on by various employees. The most significant benefit with Xamarin is how business concerns can be separated into one solution, allowing for better collaboration and continuous expansion to the solution. When working with a dotNet web service, having a Xamarin app that consumes the REST APIs makes it easy to implement client and server-based code because the code essentially looks and/or works the same. ### 7. The original cross platform mobile development environment! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Health, Wellness and Fitness | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2022 **What do you like best about .NET?** C# based Microsoft support environment and the fact you can use Visual Studio as the dev environment. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Long compile times and having to compile to see changes. The complexity of having a single project that can target multiple device types. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Building an Android mobile app. ### 8. Xamarin - A single platform for all your Mobile Application platform. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Manthan P. | Senior Software Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 20, 2021 **What do you like best about .NET?** A shared project for Android, iOS and Windows mobile application where we can create common communication code for back end and only UI needs to be developed for Native cross platform apps. Also Xamarin forms to create mobile apps with a single UI interface. PCL library can be created. **What do you dislike about .NET?** UI for ios needs to be created in ios. Linking for Native libraries can be tricky. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** For people who wants to create application with low budget for all mobile platforms can use. Also people with not prior knowledge of Mobiles development bt expert in c# can broaden their profile by creating mobile apps. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Saving organisation time for project development by creating common backend. Custom controls support. ### 9. Great tool to develop cross platform apps **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 05, 2021 **What do you like best about .NET?** the ability to create a powerful app using a single code base for Android and iOS **What do you dislike about .NET?** The remote simulator on Microsoft window sometimes is pretty slow **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Sometimes the iOS simulator tends to be slow (in windows). I recommend using Mac OS for this purpose **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** One of the principal problems I solved with xamarin was creating an Android and iOS app using a single code base and my favorite IDE Visual Studio ### 10. Easy to create Android and iPhone apps as same time **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 30, 2021 **What do you like best about .NET?** It is so cool to create Android and iOS applications using same code provided by Xamarin. **What do you dislike about .NET?** There is no good debuging tool like native frameworks provide. For Android still able to use logcat but not any forward solution for iOS. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** It is almost like native Android development using C# **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating and managing mobile applications projects with common business logic using xamarin. ### 11. Xamarin.Forms for every hybrid app Development **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mosin P. | Xamrin Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 09, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin.Forms is a platform that we can use for every hybrid development. It helps us to code faster and better in less time. Important is a community that Xamarin has which gives you better updates every time. I am into Xamarin.Forms from the last 2 years and I saw the growth of Xamarin and I am sure it is going to grow more and more in coming year. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Thing which I hate in Xamarin.Forms is about the error. Sometimes it gives you a big error and you need a clean solution and that will go in. I think that needs to be better so it will help new people. If xamarin community gives some cool control which helps us design Cool applications then it will be great. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** If you C# developer then you really need to use Xamarin.It is the best platform for developing a mobile application in less time **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Code once and used for many. This is the main benefit of Xamarin. If you are a C# developer and you are comfortable with the .Net ecosystem and you want to be Mobile App Developer then this is easy to adapt platform rather than learning new languages. ### 12. Having over 5 years of good experience in xamarin **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** kshama M. | Senior Software Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** You can easily create apps for both platform, after new upgrades we can achieve 95% of native Ui with xamarin. Forms. One developer can handle both IOS and Android. The best part is code sharing and all business logics between both platforms. If we use here the move binding the app will be very smooth, With new updates we have good handle with memory leakages. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Having some issues with graph and charts. We need Mac machine here in windows we have lots of issues. Need to have good space in machine else it hang all the times. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** It's a good way to create cross platform app without any headache. And we got lots of new features every day. And it becomes easier on each coming days. We just need to have good knowledge of c# and we can start the things for startup. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Earlier we worked on natives apps and faced lots of issues in developments, testings, and in understanding of business logics, We have lots of other cross platforms but as per my experience I faced performance issues and memory leakage issues and with xamarin if we develop things in proper way the performance will be best. ### 13. Xamarin is a great tool to create cross platform applications **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jonathan A. | Gerente, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 10, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** What we like most about Xamarin is the development of multiplatform applications (Android, iOS and Windows) with the same code. In addition there are a large number of components that facilitate the creation of an application, which saves time and lines of code. There is a lot of documentation on the use of Xamarin and there is also a large community of Xamarin users which allows to solve problems quickly. **What do you dislike about .NET?** One of the problems that has affected us the most are the continuous updates or requirements on the part of Apple or Android, since updating Xamarin to comply with those requirements appear bugs that do not allow the creation of the application due to the errors that appear in the compilation. After the first time this happened we opted to always have a stable version running and test the new versions of Xamarin or Visual Studio before using them as a production environment. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** In the beginning it is somewhat complex to understand the logic of Xamarin's operation, but there is a lot of documentation that facilitates learning, once this is achieved Xamarin offers a great alternative to create any type of mobile application. It is also prudent to have a stable production environment and not update it until the new versions have been tested and work smoothly, if this is not done on some occasions, a downgrade must be done to make it work properly again. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** The main benefit of using Xamarin is the creation of cross-platform applications with a single code. We have created applications that work offline with local information storage and applications that use RestApi for sending and receiving server information. Also the applications we have created use other features such as local notifications, the camera to take and upload photos, integrations with google maps and geolocation. ### 14. Best cross platform technology **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nitesh A. | Software Developer, Aviation & Aerospace, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 01, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** Unlike traditional hybrid solutions, based on the web technologies, a cross-platform app built with Xamarin, can still be classified as native. The performance metrics are comparable to those of Java for Android (as explained here) and Objective-C or Swift for native iOS app development. Moreover, Xamarin performance is constantly being improved to fully match the standards of native development. Visual Studio offers a complete solution for building, testing, and tracking the app’s performance: **What do you dislike about .NET?** Obviously, the Xamarin community is significantly smaller than those of native iOS or Android. It’s also smaller than React and Ionic communities. Thus, finding an experienced Xamarin developer could be a challenge. Although the platform is growing its following fueled by the support from Microsoft. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Most business owners choose Xamarin mobile app development platform as it decreases the time to market and engineering cost, by sharing the code and using a single technology stack. Yet the purpose of the app and its target audience might be an even more important factor to consider. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Xamarin allows you to create flawless experiences using platform-specific UI elements. Simple cross-platform apps for iOS, Android or Windows are built using Xamarin.Forms tool, which converts app UI components into the platform-specific interface elements at runtime. As the use of Xamarin.Forms significantly increases the speed of app development, it is a great option for business-oriented projects. Yet, there might be a slight decline in performance due to the extra abstraction layer. For custom app UI and higher performance you can still use Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android separately to ensure excellent results. ### 15. Xamarin - "Write Once - Run Everywhere" **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Saikumar N. | Software Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 13, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin is a Cross platform Mobile application Technology. By using this, We can develop native Mobile apps for Android, iOS and Windows. The Slogan of Xamarin is "Write Once - Run Everywhere". In Xamarin, XAML is used for designing the User Interface (UI) and C# language is used for the backend code. There are 2 approaches of Xamarin. 1. Xamarin.Native (Traditional Approach) 2. Xamarin.Forms In Xamarin.Native, We need to design the UI for each and every platform like Android, iOS and Windows. and backend code sharing is same for all the platforms. In Xamarin.Forms, Single UI and Single Code sharing for all the platforms. No need to create separate UI for different Platforms. This is the great advantage of Xamarin.Forms **What do you dislike about .NET?** It is the ability to share your code across all the platforms. 1. Coming to Rich UI and Heavy Graphic Apps with less code sharing, Xamarin.Forms is not Suitable. 2. App Size is also very large. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Previously, designing the UI in Xamarin.Forms is very difficult. Because, we need to deploy the entire application each and every time with small changes also. But, now the new feature has been released. i.e., "Hot Reload with Xamarin.Forms". By using this, we can change and view the UI Simultaneously. No need to run the entire application. ### 16. Xamarin: the tool for the development of multiplatform mobile applications. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nicolas M. | Technical Director, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 01, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** Really one of the best multiplatform programs, Xamarin allows to register errors and track the use in Xamarin Insight, which is very useful to track the performance and usability of this application. The configuration of the resource is very simple, only a PC with a normal configuration is required. Because it is integrated with Visual Studio, code sharing is easy with Xamarin. By using the modal view view modal function, Xamarin can be made free to hang up or freeze the screen, which can increase performance when using calls. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Xamarin is sure to be the best for the development of multiplatform mobile applications, but I consider that the use of the form developer needs to write specific platform codes to be able to access the native functionality, such as making calls, sending SMS, accessing GPS, etc. Surely they are improving this. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Xamarin is the recommended application to write multiplatform applications without having to code twice. Ideal for developers who work with the application and dominate .NET which will work very well. Quick build time is an advantage where anyone with less duration can choose this. And as for cost, being free, I definitely recommend it. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use this platform for the development of mobile applications and web design, it has been ideal for creating cross-platform applications for any organization that needs it. The applications created with Xamarin have allowed us to solve many business problems, when coding applications using C # programming while taking advantage of the Visual Studio debugging tools. We are very satisfied with Xamarin so far. ### 17. Xamarin Cross platform solutions **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** In xamarin, We can develop the mobile application is you are knowing c#.net language. Who are all having the WPF experience, they can easily learn the Xamarin Forms and develop the app in ios,android and UWP. They provide the nuget package for offline support (using Azure cloud) like wise, here so many nuget packages are available to achieve the customer requirements. **What do you dislike about .NET?** VS execution time will take more. Because, it will convert the c#.Net language to native code and deploy the code to device or emulator. VS Xamarin is not opensource. So, if their any issue xamarin, we should wait until they resolved. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Xamarin is best choice for long term project. Code maintainability is very easy. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Code sharing is major benefit in xamarin. Because, you can implement the logic once and share to all the platforms. It will very useful for product based applications. ### 18. Build a cross-platform application with Xamarin. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dan M. | Network Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 10, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin framework provides libraries that support the development of cross-platform apps. And if you're already familiar with C#, there is no need to learn platform-specific languages like Java for Android or Swift for iOS. Xamarin has a library of reusable components that can easily be installed into your project. **What do you dislike about .NET?** It's not easy to build iOS applications from a Windows computer. It involves a complicated process of connecting to a remote Apple computer. The emergence of better and more organized tools like React Native and Flutter, which have larger communities and provide better features than Xamarin, makes it hard to continue with Xamarin. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating cross-platform applications with the same code base ### 19. Best for cross platform apps **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 03, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** I was started work in xamarin from 2016. There are lots of controls and tools are introduced that improve the UI design. **What do you dislike about .NET?** First time to deploy on physical mobile, the solution takes some time. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Great technology that provided by microsoft. Very much stable and reliable. Xamarin team update xamarin version time to time. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** I started my career with xamarin. I developed many apps in xamarin forms and some apps in native android. Great experience to design UI with xamarin forms. ### 20. The best way to create cross-platform apps **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andrew W. | Driver, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 28, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin allowed me to have one code base, but create apps across the entire ecosystem. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Sometimes, things you do in Java/Kotlin, or Obj-C/Swift don't translate well to C#. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Make sure that want you want to create is fully supported by the Xamarin platform. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** The main problem Xamarin solves is having to maintain two (or more!) sets of code for each platform. Like Java, Xamarin is write once, run everywhere! ### 21. Xamarin - Great Hybrid Solution for Mobile Apps **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 31, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** The great integration it has with the native services and components of both of the leading operating systems' handhelds currently in the market. **What do you dislike about .NET?** The need to purchase specific controls which are proprietary of the operating system, such as buttons, sliders, etc. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Go to Xamarin University. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** The need to develop two solutions for the same problem, by sharing the same codebase. ### 22. Good for Implement Cross Platform Mobile Application **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Watcharin U. | Programmer, Real Estate, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 06, 2019 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin support Implement Cross Platform Mobile Application. Visual Studio support both Window OS and Mac. If user have C# knowledge can fast learning because it's like implement web application. Xamarin have simulator support android and IOS. **What do you dislike about .NET?** User can not custom Look and feel like React. Xamarin is delayed support lastest platform updates . Xamarin have limited acces to open sources libraries. Xamarin haves larger size than native application. User can not many graphics application **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Xamarin have reduces time to implement new application for support android and IOS. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Xamarin have reduces time to implement new application for support android and IOS. ### 23. Xamarin Forms for Android and iOS **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John B. | Group Product Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2018 **What do you like best about .NET?** Writing cross platform code for phones using C# is incredible. You get the benefits of the C# community as well as using Visual Studio which has an excellent debugging experience. Debugging an application running on a live device in Visual Studio is a very good experience. The community has a healthy number of contributions and there are many solved problems to choose from. **What do you dislike about .NET?** While Xamarin has been around for a while it still feels fragile. Updates to Xamarin Forms or Visual Studio can produce some nasty bugs that require you to nurse the build back however this also happens on normal .net apps when you get nuget issues. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** If you know C# and want to get into mobile development this is correct framework to try. It can be installed with Visual Studio and the installation and update process has been vastly improved over the past releases. Using Visual Studio to debug an application running on a live device is an excellent experience. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Xamarin allows me to create a simple mobile app that works on Android and iOS with little investment. The templates are good and concepts easy to learn. ### 24. Easy to use framework **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Health, Wellness and Fitness | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2018 **What do you like best about .NET?** I love how it is more efficient than native Java **What do you dislike about .NET?** When I graduate from Western, I would have to pay thousands of dollars to use this software. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** C# Android App Development ### 25. Native mobile development, simplified **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nuno C. | Senior Software Developer - ALS Life Sciences Division | Environmental, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2018 **What do you like best about .NET?** The way one can share code between apps targeting different platforms and the fact that I can use my already existing skill set of .NET, and C#, for example **What do you dislike about .NET?** The pace of updates does not help keeping the product entirely stable. It's not always easy or straightforward to upgrade code. And if you rely on plugins... It can get hairy really quick. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** If you have a .NET/C# skilled team, Xamarin is most certainly for you. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Well, the need for apps is increasingly notorious. Enterprises need them because everyone is "on the move". With Xamarin, we could leverage our existing team knowledge and thus saving costs. Also, pretty much one single code base produces 2,3 or more apps targeting different platforms. ### 26. Xamarin Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bharath Y. | Senior System Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2017 **What do you like best about .NET?** The best things i like about Xamarin : 1) Using Xamarin forms i am able to develop android and iOS app without even learning any android programming or ios programming languages. Just with normal c# language i am able to develop app which made me feel more comfort and more user friendly. Any body with knowledge of c# can start developing app using Xamarin which is making most of company to go to xamarin since there will be more dot net developers. 2)It will take less period to know about Xamarin and start working on it, since it is integrated with Visual Studio IDE so, dot net developer will feel more comfort working with xamarin. 3)We can develop cross platform application with single code which can be shared with respective native project while comiling. So with single code we can develop app for android, iOS and windows parallel. 4)Since Visual Studio Community edition comes with Xamarin, any user can download this Visual studio community edition which is free of cost and start developing app without any cost of software. 5)Setting up resource is very simple, it just needs PC with normal configuration. 6)If u enable USB debugging in android device, u can directly debug and test your app in physical device instead of emulator which is more efficient. And in iOS device also we can debug. 7)Since Xamarin allows packages/plugins from nuget.org website, u can install any package from nuget.org for functionalities like accessing camera, sending SMS, fetching GPS etc with installing packages and using it, which saves writing code for these functionality. Using packages saves time on spending writing native codes for native functionality. 8)Xamarin allows us to log errors and track usage in Xamarin insight which is very useful for tracking the performance and usability of app. 9)Using Xamarin any dot net or c# developer can start developing an app which makes any company to start using xamarin and start to build app with normal dot net or c# developer. 10)Code sharing or managing is easy with Xamarin, since it is integrated with Visual studio we can save or manage xamarin code using Team Foundation Server. 11)Using Xamarin Previewer we can view UI after making changes or coding which is handfull for developer. Rather than checking the changes or viewing the UI by deploying in emulator or Physical device, with help of Xamarin previewer we can see UI at that point only which saves time while designing UI for the app. 12)Using modal view view modal(mvvm) concept we can make Xamarin app free from hanging or freezing the screen and increase the performance of app using asynchronous calls/execution. 13)Currently Xamarin is best for cross platform mobile app development, because using c# language we can develop app with less time compared to other. **What do you dislike about .NET?** 1)App developed using Xamarin is minimum 15-20mb in size, if we develop a small app with single page then that app size will be min 15-20mb which is not reasonable. User/Client might not like app with more size, in this type of reason Xamarin might not satisfy client/user. 2)Xaml Previewer wont work often, this previewer is of big help and saves lot of time. Microsoft needs to work on previewer and come up with good solution for consistent previewer. 3)Visual studio emulator is very slow, debugging in physical device is pretty fast compared to Visual studio emulator. Unless and until developer has device for testing then only he can save time with development, or else working with emulator will make development very slow. 4)To run emulator or Visual Studio it is suggested to have more RAM or else working with emulator and visual studio will be slow compared to highly configured PC. 5)Using xamarin forms developer needs to write platform specific codes for accessing native functionality like making call, sending SMS, accessing GPS, checking battery etc. Xamarin forms must provide few basic native functionality which will save time and lines of code. 6)For checking iOS app, we need Mac machine or else we cannot test or check iOS app which is big negative point of Xamarin. To check/debug/test iOS app we need Mac machine connected to network or separate mac machine. Cannot generate IOS app in windows machine. But we can generate android and iOS app in mac machine, same needs to be possible in windows machine too. 7)Few companies wont allow to run emulator's in company machines, we need to get exception to run emulator which is not reasonable. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** I strongly recommend to people who wants to develop cross platform mobile application with c# knowledge and within less time. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** 1)Xamarin helped us to develop cross platform mobile app with less time and less resources. I can also say it saves lots of time and resources needed to develop cross platform mobile app. 2)Able to bring all intranet websites of company to cross platform native app using Xamarin forms with less time, which made us to deliver app soon using Xamarin. 3)Able to manage app performance or crashes easily. 4)Able to make changes soon and release changes pretty soon. 5)Managing the code is very useful using TFS, so no separate code managing software was required. 6)Authenticating user to app is easy using Azure Authentication which is supported in Xamarin. ### 27. Useful for developing softwares **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Subhadipto P. | Engineer II, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2018 **What do you like best about .NET?** The versatility of the XAMARIN IOS is really useful as I could develop codes easily. **What do you dislike about .NET?** The solutions once we are stuck are very hard to find. I had to spend more than a week to get my job done. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Developing IOS app for capturing image at 10 secs interval ### 28. Xamarin forms - Native iOS & Android Apps **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Amal R. | COO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 01, 2018 **What do you like best about .NET?** One single code base for both iOS & Android native apps. There is a lot of code reuse and easy to maintain. Integrates quite well with Azure Mobile Services backend, **What do you dislike about .NET?** Limited support for UX widgets. Also compatibility issues between versions of various xamarin components. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Developing a G2G, B2B & B2C Events management app for managing professional events and dissemination of information instead of sharing content in flyers & brochures. Gelocation services for events management. Gamification via quizzes and surveys. ### 29. Multiplatform native app? **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Guido G. | Desarrollador Web, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 21, 2017 **What do you like best about .NET?** What can I tell you about Xamarin that isn't public knowledge? Xamarin is a development environment based on Mono, which allows for the development of applications for iOS, Android, Windows, and hybrid platforms (all of the above). In this review, I will talk about the software, leaving the company itself aside. Initially, Xamarin was very expensive, although its functionality was great. After the acquisition by Microsoft and with the arrival of VS Community, Xamarin is now accessible to everyone. This means that for our freelance projects, we can use VS Community and offer this advantage to our clients. **What do you dislike about .NET?** The main strength is also its disadvantage: it is integrated into Visual Studio, so we must download all its GB to use it. Currently, the installer image weighs around 7 GB. Additionally, we need to know something about the structure of native Android, iOS, Windows, and C# applications to use it and program quickly and efficiently. Finally, to compile iOS applications, it is necessary to have a computer with Mac OS. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** If you have experience in C#, go ahead, the upcoming knowledge is minor. If you do not have it and there is a desire to learn, believe me, it's a fascinating world. Otherwise, it's better to use Apache Cordova/PhoneGap. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Obviously, allowing native applications written in a single unofficial language is a great advantage, since the same logic and (almost) the same instructions serve the multiple mobile platforms on which it can be deployed. We even have the option to make hybrid applications with native code. A big advantage over other software that offers the same, like Apache Cordova / Phonegap. ### 30. Lots of trouble tout deploy, lots of fun to develop **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Etienne D. | Consultant en développement logiciel, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 29, 2017 **What do you like best about .NET?** Ability to share most of the code between all platforms **What do you dislike about .NET?** I had many difficulties to deploy on Android and iOS, upgrading Xamarin.Forms, Vs 2017 and Android Sdk often leads to problems hard tout fix **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** One app to develop, very fast ### 31. awesome **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Broadcast Media | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2017 **What do you like best about .NET?** cross platform development made easy. hitting two platform in one code **What do you dislike about .NET?** nothing at all **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** mobility ### 32. Best way to develop for mobile - and you can use C# **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Thimo B. | Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 28, 2017 **What do you like best about .NET?** We mostly use Xamarin.Forms to develop our mobile applications - this gives us another layer for sharing code between the platforms. **What do you dislike about .NET?** The tooling in Visual Studio is sometimes a little tricky and you need to try workarounds for some parts to get them working, in my case I have usually problems with the Android tools **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** You really should use Xamarin University to get started and to get a deeper look in the platfrom **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** As .Net developers Xamarin allows us to bring our apps to all platforms using the skills we already have ### 33. The best one stop shop for multi platform apps **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James M. | Software Engineer, Defense & Space, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 18, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** I like that ability to use c# to create my mobile apps as it's my language of choice. Being able to use the .net framework and platform have my creating applications so much easier for anyone who develops on windows. Also being able to use Visual Studio means devs get to use the best IDE currently available. **What do you dislike about .NET?** I don't like that not every feature from iOS and Android is not available. I know the Xamarin team is working to bring as much functionality as possible to us but it's frustrating to wait. Also, to develop an iOS app you still are required to have an apple device to build the app. That's not a knock on Xamarin though, Apple built the platform that way. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** If you are a C# dev then this is your ticket. Jump right in with familiar frameworks and you can start being productive almost immediately. It can't do everything like building natively can, but it's close and getting closer. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** The app I'm currently working on helps match fitness trainers and clients together and allows tracking of various fitness related data. I've also used Xamarin to build niche social network apps. ### 34. Xamarin is incredibly powerful but the UX is terrible **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mark W. | Senior Developer, Market Research, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 12, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin allows you to develop genuinely native (after compliation) apps for both Android and iOS and share business logic between them. Xamarin is well integrated with Visual Studio so it will feel very familiar to you once you start. Xamarin has just been bought by Microsoft (What an endorsement!) **What do you dislike about .NET?** Installing Android packages and APIs is an absolute pain. You have to use a separate package manager and it's very easy to get lost during this process. Similarly, it's a rocky road when configuring the Visual Studio Emulator. This sort of stuff should (and probably will) be automated upon installation. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Don't expect too much from their support arm **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** We needed the ability as, we're a startup, to write apps for iOS and Android with a common codebase without having to maintain two code bases and retain knowledge of both Swift and Java. We already knew C# so using Xamarin to deploy native applications to these platforms was a no brainer. ### 35. Just a few tests **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** João A. | Web Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** The new integration with Visual Studio and lovely C#. Native use of interfaces interfaces and API, with my test i can have the same performance that i have in absoulutly native app, no limitations here. Android, iOS and Windows with almost the same code? Great job. MVC its a great thing also. **What do you dislike about .NET?** When we search for Xamarin on Google we found information under de xamarim website and under Microsoft websites, so, this information turns a little confuse. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** We know the limitations but it was greate that improve the ios simulator. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** In my company, we need to produce some applications in less time possible, so we start to test Xamarim to use less code to do more job done. The code shared for multiple platform its a killer feature. ### 36. AS a C# Developer I can finally make IOS apps. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tony V. | Principal Consultant, Hospital & Health Care, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 01, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** I can leverage my C# and .NET platform experience and be immediately productive developing apps for IOS, including the latest iPhone and iPad. **What do you dislike about .NET?** It is a little tricky to set up XCode and get all of the necessary provisioning and development certificates set up on Mac. Xamarin Studio on the Mac requires XCode for compilation. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** If you are already heavily invested in the .NET platform and C# development Xamarin is the quickest way to make native IOS apps. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** My client needed to build software to fit their business needs that was not already available on the iPad. I was able to leverage my C# skills and Xamarin to build that app for them. The benefits are quicker time to market as well as reduced development costs. ### 37. I like Xamarin **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2017 **What do you like best about .NET?** best android development software in visual studio. I am very happy for using xamarin. I suggest pls create xamarin software all in one setup link for download offline install.. thank you. **What do you dislike about .NET?** I suggest pls create xamarin software all in one setup link for download offline install.. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** all in one language for c# ### 38. The best cross-platform mobile development available for all three major platforms **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 31, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Cross-platform development for mobile is a complex task to accomplish if the aim is to have a native feeling for the user and also share code among platforms. Xamarin solution enables 60-80% of code reuse depending on how you architect your solution. It also generate native binaries that have no browser wrapper or any other kind of runner/interpreter in between your app and the native APIs. Xamarin architecture was designed so that all native APIs from the underlying platform can be accessed using the same class names as the original API and the way it works is the same. Some little this were adapted to the .NET and C# style of programming, so these native APIs gain delegates, async & await, properties, attributes and lambda/LinQ support. This makes the programming on those platforms feels as native as possible, but also using the best of .NET Framework. Third-party native libraries can easily be consumed inside Xamarin using Platform Invoke features from .NET and some helper tools that are integrated into Xamarin Sutdio. **What do you dislike about .NET?** One thing that annoys me is the licensing price. At least for individuals, it is not affordable to use on private projects. Now that Microsoft has bought Xamarin, the pricing and licensing rules might change and things might be more affordable to individuals (at least I hope so). Another thing that annoys me is not directly related to the solution, per se, but to the availability of professionals willing to learn and engage into developing Mobile solutions using Xamarin. There is some prejudice among native developers regarding the solution being based on the .NET Framework, on the other side, there is some prejudice also on the HTML5/Javascript (PhoneGap/Cordoba) side also. Many developers try to push this instead of really accessing the pros/cons of this kind of wrapped browser solutions. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Xamarin is the solution to go if you need cross-platform mobile solutions and also want to share code instead of developing everything from scratch for **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** We develop cross-platform mobile applications for all three major platforms: iOS, Android and Windows RT / WIndows Phone. We develop business (B2B), customer (B2C) and personal use applications. ### 39. Powerful cross-platform IDE for C# development **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kasim T. | Senior UI Engineer, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 08, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** One tool for all (building iOS, Android, Mac and Windows app). Play nicely under MacOS environment. Easy to use interface. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Lack of Azure deployment control from the IDE. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Xamarin is the top choice if you are developing C# or .NET applications under MacOS. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Develop Mac app using C# and .NET solutions. ### 40. Best mobile platform I can think of. No reason not to use it! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alexandre Z. | Software Development Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 04, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** This is the best platform for mobile development in the market! There is no reason not to use it. It does what it sells. You can share code between platforms and specify the UI you need for each platform. I love how it integrates with Visual Studio, and it is always up-to-date. Xamarin.Forms is evolving and WILL be a great product, even more now that it is open sourced and Free to use! **What do you dislike about .NET?** Sometimes it takes too long to release new features, like Android's support library. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Use it. Abuse it. It works as stated and solve the problem that need to be solved: Code sharing between Android, iOS, Mac and Windows. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Code sharing between platforms. ### 41. Great app development tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** kiran k. | Student, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin is a great tool for app developers to develop multi platform apps which includes android, windows, iOS and Mac apps. It is a simple tool and good interface, easy to work with it. Debugging is easy. With a single shot we can develop multi platform apps, So saves lots of time. Since C# is famous software it is easy for many developers who already know C#. **What do you dislike about .NET?** This platform difficult for the programmers who don't know C#. Beginners need sto learn lots of things to get expert. No option for language change. Tekes more memory after creating apps. IT is not cost efficient, developers have to pay more money. Sometime slow downs when large app is creating. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** It is great software for app developers. I recommend this as the best one. Even though it is expensive, it is really great one go for this. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a developer I found Xamarin as very use full tool to develop multi platform apps at a single shot. It is really helping me to develop quick and effective apps. ### 42. App with one code - multiple platforms that too with a known C# language **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sai Krishna Kubera G. | CEO, Automotive, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 21, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Building native apps with shared common language infrastructure is the best part of it. And once coding is done with C# language later this can be deployed into many platforms without any effort like android, ios, windows etc..Lots of tutorials are available which makes beginners to go ahead with the huge tool easily. User interface of studio is nice to use and easy to proceed. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Xamarin in not fully free which makes difficult to beginners to give a try. Opening a saved files from other systems hangs sometimes which should be fixed by xamarin as early as possible as sharing of code will be an easier task later. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Any programmer with basic knowledge C# programming language can start using this to build apps in multiple platforms which is easier to them and can learn C# language also which is a bonus to them. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a self developer of android apps i just wanted to startup with a beginning apps and has my ideas to implement where Xamarin helped me to proceed in an easier way with minimal time and most effective apps. ### 43. Cross Platform DevOps with Xamarin **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Henry P. | Sr. Clouds Architecture/Advisor -iCTO, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** The development team is well versed & very knowledgeable in C# and the .Net framework; and has not developed any native mobile applications in Objective-C nor Android Java. Right for Simple Apps There is a need to develop a simple native application for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The emphasis is on the “simple native applications,” where simple is a relative term. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Crashing I did notice that Xamarin Studio caused my Mac to crash more frequently. Even when using another app with Xamarin Studio opened, my Mac would still crash. Cost Another factor to consider is the cost of the Xamarin license. Xamarin offers 3 pricing plans, Indie ($300 per year), Business ($1,000 per year per license) and Enterprise (about $2,000 per year per license). Industry Adoption If Xamarin has solved the cross platform of “write once and deploy many,” it does not seem if the job market has followed along. In a recent job requirements search on Dice, very few descriptions included Xamarin. So far, industry adoption of the development software has been minimal. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Any one who wish to write code once & deploy to all the platform may wish to try this tool set **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Deploy apps on multi-platform ### 44. C# programmers gets a chance to build native Apps **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Siddartha L. | Student, Higher Education, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 20, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Programmers with an idea towards C# language which is common nowadays will be very helpful with this software which helps to build apps to many platofrms in one single touch. User interface is very fexible in many ways and easily understandable for beginner to the software. Online debug is also available. Debugging is very easy here as many highlighting and suggesstions is deisplayed in the wrong area. The component store with free and paid accessabilty of features is a plus point to the software. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Apps created using this software are huge in size as it includes some libraries within the created app which is not space optimized compares to other softwares. Not much solutions to the problems faced by beginners is avaiable in the internet like in stackoverflow.com, whereas for android we get many answers. So beginners might face bit tough to go ahead with the tool. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** C# programmers can get a nice chance of building apps with less effort and multiple platforms. Fast build time is an advantage where any one with less duration can choose this. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating apps for myself and share among our college locally. Creating apps for any college events and some startups is my hobbie and joined a startup company as well for which i building app using xamarin which is much flexible and helped me to go ahead. ### 45. The only reasonable choice for cross-platform mobile development **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brett J. | Software Development Co-op, Computer Software, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 13, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin is excellent for enterprise. Xamarin's strength is in allowing users to create cross-platform mobile apps in C# (and F#). C# is a very common language that is well-known by most developers who work on Windows. Xamarin allows me to also write desktop apps and console apps in C# on a Mac. One of the aspects I love is how easy it is to get off the ground with Xamarin's sample apps that are cleanly written and which you can look to for reference. The Xamarin Studio's UI is also very attractive and intuitive and presents a much more pleasant alternative to something like Eclipse's clunky UI. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Xamarin's free tier is crippled. Xamarin's free tier doesn't allow you to use P/Invoke and sets a limit on how large your app can be, in order to force you to buy a license. The cost is prohibitive for hobbyist developers and open source developers and, IMHO, hurts the state of cross-platform .NET development. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** If you're creating a mobile app from scratch, start with Xamarin. You can reduce the size of your mobile development team and its corresponding buglog by using Xamarin's cross-platform abilities. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Xamarin enables write once, run anywhere apps on mobile platforms and on the desktop with Mono. I have been able to write .NET code on my mac and have it run flawlessly on a docker Linux container with no adjustment. ### 46. Xamarin. Great tool for small teams. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Angel A. | Lead Mobile Developer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin let you reach up to three mobile platforms using only one language C#. The apps created with Xamarin are totally native and you have every API or component at your disposition, like a native developer. Besides that, .Net ecosystem is huge and C# is a really advanced language. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Although the layer between Xamarin and native APIs is thin, it exists and adds to your binary an extra size in terms of bytes. The Xamarin Studio or Xamarin for Visual Studio workflow can't beat the native equivalents in term of productivity, sometimes the compilation is a bit slow. Finally, the solutions for bugs and the patters used are not exactly the same for each platform. Because the platform abstraction barely exists, you'll need to understand three environments (.Net, Android, iOS), probably translate from Swift and Java and you'll write your code in "the Xamarin way". As result, find a developer that complete the previous tasks is not easy. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Xamarin fits very well for small teams (3 - 5 members) . With only one codebase, the features reach all platforms faster. The team members can switch between platforms, giving to your team a nice flexibility. The companies that uses Microsoft products can reuse a huge amount of knowledge and code. ### 47. Good alternative to the Microsoft .NET Stack **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stefan B. | sr. BIM Manager, Information Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2015 **What do you like best about .NET?** During my PhD in Architectural Engineering I was quite involved with programming. I used C++ with the promise of working cross-platform, since I wanted to support Windows, OSX and Linux. At that time, Qt was probably one of the options for native applications, which for me was essential. I never really got into Java. But Microsoft .NET was also getting more relevant each year. However, what held me back was the Windows-only support. I discovered C# when learning Unity and after a while, I discovered that it combined C++ and Java and was (to me) quite accessible. Unity provided the Mono Framework and Monodevelop IDE, which in fact is the editor from Xamarin. And slowly I started to discover Xamarin. The main positives for me are the cross-platform compatibility (OSX!), the support of C# and most .NET libraries (not all of them). They also provide the necessary libraries for several business cases (user interfaces etc...). Being able to target iOS and Android with a largely shared code base in a project is very good. **What do you dislike about .NET?** There is a free version available to get to know the Xamarin Ecosystem, but it is seriously limited for any "real" project (project size, linking native libraries etc...). The actual price which is a subscription-based model, is not cheap. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** When you focus on C# and .NET but still want to target iOS, Android and OSX alongside Windows, this is a good alternative. However, the pricing of the toolkit is not cheap and it's a subscription based per-developer licenses, although I assume there are alternative licensing options for bigger companies. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** On OSX, I can develop C# programs and run them with the Mono framework. And I use Xamarin Studio in place of Monodevelop when developing for Unity. ### 48. Reincarnation with Xamarin **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gordon T. | Software Developer, Computer Software, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 20, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** In one sentence, Xamarin's ability to have a common application logic for iOS, Android and Windows Phone platform. This results in application development time to be extremely rapid when creating an application for all devices as well as maintenance benefits. Legacy logic code can be imported from web/desktop and used within the application thus removing the need for repeated efforts and duplciate versions. **What do you dislike about .NET?** I have two dislikes with Xamarin both of which are the results of Xamarin's main benefits. The first is the cost for licenses. With a business licences for one developer costing $999 it is hard to justify using this technology for a large team (10+ developers). The technology is more suited to a smaller team 3-5 developers where cost to benefit ratio is more acceptable. The second is application publish size. Xamarin Applications need to include Mono and Mono components in order for the application to run. This increases the application size considerably when compared to applications written in Objective-C for iOS and Java for Android. Alought this may not appear to be a major issue it will turn people away from downloading the app from the app store / play store respectively. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Ideal if your developers or legacy code are mainly c# orientated. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** The main business problem which Xamarin resolves is the issue of change in a business and market. Xamarin allows you to flex with the impact of changes and makes it easy to impact these changes upon your applications. Another of Xamarin's services is a cloud test environment, this takes out the uncertainty of deploying your applications to many varied devices and versions of platforms. ### 49. The most useful tool for modern multi-platform developments **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pablo V. | CEO - Founder, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** Xamarin is a great and very stable product. It has grown up quite a bit since its inception and it is very stable now. The market demands multiplatform apps, and time is not always an option. Tools like: Integration with Microsoft Visual Studio, the use of already existing languages like C#, or even the use of it as a standalone IDE. I'm glad to have it installed on my machines. We all have team of experts on some language or another, one operating system or another, and Xamarin will increase the production while giving you a valuable option: you don't have to re-invent the wheel, you just need to expand your knowledge at a minimum cost, and with a soft learning curve. If you work with large teams (that you want to keep working with) then you can easily introduce them to (for example) Android without having to switch (for example) from C# to Java. Almost everything becomes an option. That's value, in my opinion. Finally, I really like the way projects are created and organized: core-shared functions in one place, and other linked projects for the platform specifics. Very well done. **What do you dislike about .NET?** Stability was an issue, but they're moving fast in order to fix everything. Also, I've experienced some problems with Visual Studio while rendering the controls (it is not the case with Xamarin IDE). I hope they'll fix it, I believe they're going to do it because they keep a close eye to the developers community. **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Try it! You won't regret it. And in the meantime you will also learn more about all the related technologies. In other words, nothing to lose and a lot to gain if you have to migrate, expand or create a new App. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** Realtime audio related products, CMS-like software, SaaS. The major benefit is that I don't have to worry about the client's phone model, operating system, and so on... ### 50. Good and easy to Develop **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sivaprasad S. | Software Developer, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 05, 2016 **What do you like best about .NET?** As a developer i can build cross platform application in solution, that is if i make application in xamarin forms, i can take the out put in android , IOs or in windows phone app etc. Compared to the native application development xamarin form are much faster to Develop and deploy. **What do you dislike about .NET?** In xamarin forms the controls are limited so have to custom generate the controls for rendering in cross platform. more over i am using visual studio / xamarin studio for development i have many bugs. Some time i have to close the visual studio / xamarin studio for building the debugging the application . **Recommendations to others considering .NET:** Its based on the app that you are developing if you are making a basic app xamarin froms is best and if you are making a big app native application in xamarin is best even you can share the code in each solution. i would recommend if this problem is solved in the new vertion it will be very helpful to use xamarin. if so it will be recommencement for cross platform mobile development as it need little time to needed to develop application in multi platforms. **What problems is .NET solving and how is that benefiting you?** while developing in xamarin we need to develop in single platform and later i can be ported in to other platforms as well i this sense it save lot of development time and productivity. As a developer it save me time. xamarin also provides testing. ## .NET Discussions - [Which is best MVVM framework for Xamarin.Forms and What is future of Xamarin?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/which-is-best-mvvm-framework-for-xamarin-forms-and-what-is-future-of-xamarin) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Is xamarin form good?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-xamarin-form-good) - 1 comment - [View .NET pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/net-2023-06-12/reviews?page=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-05+21%3A39%3A40+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=7835e1a5-aee2-42ee-a62e-30832d04f400&secure%5Btoken%5D=3c9f19d5b5eb1bf05093ad3e3ff015a6c16e9d4c53c804b9f72fc676cdc81ba8&format=llm_user) ## .NET Integrations - [Amazon AWS Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-aws-platform/reviews) - [Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-simple-notification-service-sns/reviews) - [Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-simple-queue-service-sqs/reviews) - 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