Xamarin Platform Room for Improvement

AG
Area Manager at Landmark Group

There are issues with Xamarin, such as when you run into errors doing something called linking. When you build your solution, you can use Linker, which can give you errors if you don't link properly. However, the major I see with Xamarin right now is that there is no visual editor. For example, Android Studio or Xcode have visual editors where you can drag and drop controls. If you are designing a mobile screen with an image, some text, and a button, you could just drag controls from the library into the screen and see how they look. But there is no feature in Xamarin, and you have to write code.

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Vishal Paliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Xamarin Developer at Cognizant

The debugging functionality could be improved in Xamarin Platform because sometimes it takes very long to move through the stages of setting up the application build to the final deployment on a mobile app that resides in a physical device.

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Mark Reynolds - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer (Xamarin/MAUI Mobile, .NET APIs, Azure Cloud) at rseg

The solution struggles a little bit with binding libraries. If you want to use something like Google Maps or a third-party component that's been built for Android or iOS but isn't part of the actual Android or iOS platform, you have to build these things called binding libraries. It's a tedious process and the tooling doesn't do a lot to help you with it. The really common libraries usually have bindings already built that you can use, but if you get stuck having to build binding libraries, it's a lot of work.

I'm a Mac user and I'm not a huge fan of the Visual Studio for Mac because it's not as strong of a tool as the Visual Studio for Windows, and you don't have the same features on both. That's why I have to resort to a different IDE. I generally work in JetBrains Rider because it's a much better IDE for Mac. The IDE support on Mac lags, but they do have a new version of Visual Studio out, so I can't say I've given it a fair chance yet.

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Buyer's Guide
Xamarin Platform
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Xamarin Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Nishan Timilsina - PeerSpot reviewer
Mobile Engeneer at ServiceLInk inc

They should focus on the Xamarin compiling item. It's hard to find what the exact issue is on the Xamarin core. They have to focus more on the Xamarin compiling features and tools and maybe test some options.

We'd like to have some chat support functionality. It would be helpful if we got responses faster. 

They have to focus more on UI debugging. It may suddenly crash without a known reason. They have to focus more on the performance or debugging things and, or course, publish more packages to support both iOS and Android.

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Ahmed Adel ElKhateeb - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engeneer at Inetum

Xamarin Platform can improve if there was a virtual test environment so we did not have to have a Mac system for the iOS testing. At this time You must have a Mac to deploy or generate IBA profiles. 

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Miroslav Kouril - PeerSpot reviewer
Mobile Xamarin Developer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

The solution does not include Hot Reload which is painful because it causes us to wait quite some time for huge builds. 

The solution does not allow for use of the latest or premium version of Visual Studio so we have to use the 2019 version. 

The layout interface and designer for Android Studio is more advanced than the iOS Builder. Most of our layouts have to be built in Xcode but broken connections and file updates are continuing issues. 

Standard libraries have not been updated in four years because the focus has been on newer products like Xamarin.Forms and .NET MAUI. 

To continue to use the solution, we have to bind SDKs after new Android or iOS platform releases. 

No support is offered that would make our lives easier so we rely instead on Rider as an ID for development because it includes ReSharper. 

The auto update system is not trusted because it has broken our builds on occasion. 

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Sattasundar Parida - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Project Engineer at Wipro Limited

This solution has improved in so many areas, like in .NET MAUI. They have reduced the structure and introduced so many new features. However, Xamarin Platform lacks in app size. When we are developing an app, it is higher compared to other frameworks. The developers are working on the issue, as many people have raised concerns about the app file size. They should introduce a fix on .NET 7.0.

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MohammedSadiq - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Mobile Developer / Senior Xamarin Developer at Imparta

Xamarin Platform can improve by making the enterprise documentation better. There's a lot of basic documentation of how to do many of the functions of the solution, but there's not much enterprise-level documentation.

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Lalani Samir - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Xamarin Developer at Ezyhaul

We have noticed that there have been stability-based performance issues with this product, which need to be improved.

We would also like the notification feature that was available with previous versions, to be included again.

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Fabio Cerioni - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner at Novis Euforia

The monitoring of the remote devices is not good as it should be extended along. It would be useful if the log is more integrated with the central console. I am not sure it can be accessed but it would be better.


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Aamez Khan Pathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at Sensussoft Software Pvt.Ltd ®

Xamarin Platform is missing the code renderer, like a model view controller where you can design your code and then pass it while in preview model. Having this would provide better performance.

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MH
Manager Mobile Software Development at SEAMGEN, LLC

Xamarin's profiling tools are only available for the highest tier of MSDN subscription and compatibility with platform-native profiling tools is rather lacking. This causes friction when working on performance-related issues.

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AS
Consultant/Software Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Xamarin is reaching its end of life and they're moving it to .NET MAUI, combining it with other platforms and creating a centralized framework. It's a big change that's affecting a lot of the good features and something they could have done in a more user-friendly way.

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Arif Imran - PeerSpot reviewer
Independent Cross Platform App Development Consultant

It would be better if they offered more certifications. They offer a number of certifications for Azure but none for Xamarin. This is something that could be provided for developers to show off their competency. Technical support could be better.

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RR
Data Management Technical Lead - Project Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

The software itself was pretty good. The problem that I faced was that the communication, the roles, and the responsibilities, weren't defined between Microsoft and Xamarin, that's really where the problem was in my opinion. Nobody was taking ownership of that. 

Let's say you have two platforms on-prem. If you're an iPad user, you want the look and feel of the iPad; if you are a Surface Pro user, you want the look and feel of the Surface Pro. What I feel is of the utmost importance in regards to Xamarin, is to make sure that when you do something, whatever the object is, you get the object that the iPad user expects. Conversely, if you're a Surface Pro user, you get the object that the Surface Pro user expects.

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UB
Sr. Xamarin Developer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

They can improve their marketing to have more popularity as other solutions in the market. I haven't seen that many limitations in the Xamarin Platform. It's pretty UI-heavy, and some may say that Xamarin applications are a bit slow, but that is probably only if the developer hasn't followed the instructions.

Creating an application works like a native application, but the file size is a bit big, so you have to make certain layers. That is one drawback, but it is understandable because we use an external platform. When we build the project, the C Sharp code and the Xamarin Platform get converted into the native code in Android and iOS, so we have to have a middle layer bundled inside our application.

In the past, when we wanted to select a file from our mobile storage, we could not, and that feature was missing, so we had to implement it in native code and then use it in our code. But now they have created Xamarin Essential, which has all those features.

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it_user879264 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mobile Practice Director

The most common issues involved are with the IDE and build process. The worst build issue concerns are the caching process MSBuild uses to reduce the build time. It is unnecessarily complex (internally) and will sometimes leave cached files which should have been removed, even when a full solution clean is performed. The work around involves closing the solution and deleting some project folders. Occasionally, IntelliSense loses sync with the code and provides visual error indicators when no error exists.

Xamarin.Forms does have some short comings, especially surrounding performance. Launch time on Android is a particular issue because Xamarin.Forms loads all the external assemblies during initialization. Support for lazy loading or merging of assembles would significantly reduce this, but Microsoft is still committed to a solution. Support of platform specific behavior could also still be improved. However, I believe strongly that Xamarin.Forms is the future of cross-platform native mobile development.

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Valmik Magar - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr.Xamarin Developer at SculptSoft

The Xamarin.Forms could improve.

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FB
Software Developer at Politecnico di Milano

The solution always has room for improvement with price, integration, stability, and documentation.

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Gurswak Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Xamarin Developer at Beesolver Technology Pvt Ltd

The application platform could be improved. We've had some compatibility issues on the android side with the different versions although they work fine with iOS. The product lacks some controls and enhancements that would provide additional features that we need.

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Shivendra Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Xamarin forms and dot net developer at Winlancer Technologies

Xamarin Platform's performance base could be improved. In the next release, Xamarin Platform should include gradients and a looping feature in its path

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Prem Sai Varada - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior - Analyst Programmer at Web Synergies

I believe there is already a better version in.NET MAUI. Xamarin Platform has already been shut down in the month of May 2024, according to my knowledge. Support will be discontinued in the month of May 2024.

It already has a completely new version. It has already vastly improved.

The architecture in the Xamarin Platform has to improve, there are some features missing.

There are no borders. The main thing that the Xamarin Platform lacks is a user interface. It is somewhat difficult when we are creating the UI.

Borders and sheets are two of the most important features that are missing in Xamarin. The frame is heavyweight. Sheets, nowadays, we see looking sheets on every platform and in every application. It will come from the bottom. When you finish paying, it will come from the bottom. It's similar to the system's successfully completed sheet.

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JJ
Works at D’aprile Properties

There is limited support for UX widgets. Also, there are compatibility issues between versions of various Xamarin components.

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BS
System Analyst at Intersoft Data Labs

I would say that every technology has room for improvement, Xamarin Platform is no exception. All Xamarin library issues which need to be taken care of should be top priority. Sometimes it becomes clumsy when there are a lot of things going on in your project or solution and you need to take care of business logic in parallel. On top of everything, providing only wrapper classes does not make a developer’s life easy.

So yes, there are improvements going on and they will need to continue to improve in the future as well.

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KR
Software Development Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

It would be great to have some quirks of Xamarin.Forms solved. However, the number of community developed libraries and components are growing rapidly, so this should be another advantage soon. 

Nowadays, it is common to find a problem that you would need to develop from the start since there are no third-party components to reuse.

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it_user877149 - PeerSpot reviewer
C#/Xamarin/Mobile Technical Lead at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees

I would like to see hot reload, similar to what Flutter has out-of-the-box. There is "Live Reload" but it’s still in preview and was only recently announced.

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NC
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
  • It needs offline sync capabilities to store data on devices persistently. 
  • Security features and data analytics need to be improved.
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it_user589014 - PeerSpot reviewer
Co Founder at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Xamarin Studio should be more polished and support native functions (iOS, Android). It should be working like a charm.

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KS
Xamarin Developer

They need to take a step towards independence from the UI platform. It takes a lot of time to adapt the native controls.

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JZ
Mobile Apps Team Lead, Scrum Master, Senior App Developer (Xamarin, Android) at a music company with 51-200 employees

The performance needs improvement, especially the dev tools, and also the ultimate output of the mobile applications.

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it_user877152 - PeerSpot reviewer
Xamarin Forms Sr. / Team Leader

Needs to improve the customization of its screens.

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it_user877128 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For those who use only XAML to design the UI, it would be better if there was a better XAML previewer or designer.

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AB
Xamarin Certified Consultant/Architect
  • The android application compilation time needs to be reduced. 
  • The deployment package sizes need to be looked into.
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CS
Technical Lead with 10,001+ employees

They need to improve performance, especially for the Android platform. Also, some controls are missing in the Xamarin framework when compared to native controls; for example, the checkbox control.

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JS
Founder and CEO at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We need to think about partnering with IBM because there is a need for a big data partner; someone who has machine learning and can help us connect the app to big data.

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it_user879252 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

I feel that the Android AppCompat library creates a lot of issues. A lot of development time is often wasted solving these issues.

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Buyer's Guide
Xamarin Platform
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Xamarin Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.