Fruits of my recent search for a cross-platform ui toolkit.

[Victor Mumford]

Thanks for the overview Brian! I've never heard of Avalonia UI, but I'll be
glad to look into it, I'm glad to have a reason to practice C#. I wonder
why Microsoft is working on MAUI though if Avalonia seems more mature and
feature-full, at least on a surface level?

I can't compare it to the other options, but I've been very happy with
Flutter so far.

On Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 3:20 PM Brian Sturgill <c.brian.sturgill at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Primary Criterion: Must work on Linux, Windows and MacOS desktops.
>
> I want to use this to make open-source desktop apps.
>
> --
>
> # What I believe about cross-platform UIs as of 2003-12-18.
>
> Cross-platform and cross-language:
>     wxWidgets: (Windows, Linux, MacOS, *BSD)
>         https://www.wxwidgets.org/
>         Uses native controls, bindings in a huge number of languages.
>         It lags on mobile, iOS in progress.
>         Apps feel dated, even though wxWidgets take steps to use latest
>             controls on Windows.
>         Linux toolkits support is great, but alas, those toolkits are also
>             looking dated.
>         Haven't done recent measurements, but is rather fat (disk/memory)
>             unless you are using it directly in C++.
>         Basically you have a language, wrapping a huge toolkit, which
>             wraps native controls. It kind of has to be fat.
>
> Dart only:
>     Flutter (Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS, Android)
>         https://flutter.dev/
>         Does not use native controls.
>         Most modern looking of all the options.
>         Has the smallest runtime to lug around.
>             (Still not that small - 20M on Linux).
>
> Dotnet only:
>     (These obviously have to deal with the rather large .NET runtime.)
>     Avalonia (Windows, Linux [Gtk], MacOS, iOS, Android)
>         https://avaloniaui.net/
>         Does not use native controls.
>         If you liked Microsoft's WPF, you want to look at this one.
>         Alas, doesn't seem to be nearly as popular as I think it should be.
>     Microsoft MAUI (Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android)
>         https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/maui
>         MacOS "support" is really just for iOS app on MacOS.
>         Uses native controls.
>         Windows support is said to be buggy. (Shocking, really.)
>
> Python only:
>     (These obviously have to deal with the huge Python runtime.)
>     (Remember that Windows and maybe even MacOS will need Python to be
> installed.)
>     (One would have to seriously consider using venv for app
> distributions.)
>     Kivy
>         https://kivy.org/
>         Does not use native controls.
>     BeeWare
>         https://beeware.org/
>         Does not use native controls.
>
> Java VM:
>     (These obviously have to deal with the rather large
> Java/Kotlin/Compose runtime.)
>     JetBrains/compose-multiplatform (Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android)
>         https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-multiplatform
>         Is Kotlin based (from JetBrains). Uses Google's Jetpack Compose.
>         iOS support is in alpha.
>         This toolkit has not really taken off yet, but it could.
>         I am not certain, but it seems not to be using native controls.
>         However, it appears you can use some native controls with the
>         toolkit.
>
>      There are a number of older toolkits, AWT, SWT, etc. but none seem
>      to have really gained traction.
>
> Notes:
>     Native controls yea, or nay?
>     Native controls behave exactly like the user expects and blends in
> well.
>     Not using native controls reduces bloat, gives pixel perfect accuracy
>     across platforms and often is faster. (Native controls sets have gained
>     bloat with time.)
>
>     Most popular for mobile is 1) Flutter, 2) MAUI.
>     React Native, Phone Gap, and Cordova are being left behind.
>
>     I personally (for my open source desktop app work) am going with
> Flutter.
>     My second choice would have been wxWidgets, not sure what language
> though.
>
>     I will be using Material Design with Flutter as most people have seen
> it
>     and it doesn't look like any of the native platforms. Looking _like_
>     native when you're not, often leads to confusion.
>
>     I don't consider JavaScript things here. They are all quite bloated.
>     Their popularity has decreased rapidly in recent times.
>     Electron is still the leader here if you want to go that route.
>     (Before going there, take a look at the memory footprint of VSCode or
> Atom.)
>
>     Also, not included is React Native which is complicated.
>     It isn't really "native" in any meaningful sense.
>     It was heavily used for a while but has been declining.
>
>     I am only considering open source solutions here, so Qt is not
>     included (not free outside of Linux).
>
> --
>
> Brian
>
>
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