Framework

A cross-platform UI framework built on .NET

Avalonia uses XAML for layout, C# for logic, and MVVM for structure. If your team already builds with WPF, WinUI, or other .NET UI stacks, the patterns and skills transfer directly.

Unlike frameworks that wrap native controls, Avalonia draws its own UI with Skia, giving you pixel-identical rendering on every target. One codebase produces native applications for desktop, mobile, and web without platform-specific workarounds.

MIT licensed

Built on open source, trusted in production

Avalonia is used in production by teams at organisations including Autodesk, JetBrains, and Devolutions. The framework is MIT-licensed and commercially backed by AvaloniaUI: the engineers who build it support it directly through Avalonia Enterprise. It’s maintained with a growing open-source community, with contributions from Microsoft, JetBrains, Stripe, and Avanade.

Contributions from

Rendering

Skia by default, partnered with Google on Impeller

Avalonia ships with Skia as the default rendering backend, delivering consistent visual fidelity across all platforms. Working in partnership with Google’s Flutter engineering team, we’re bringing Impeller to Avalonia. Impeller uses precompiled shaders and a hardware-accelerated pipeline to eliminate jank and reduce frame times on GPU-intensive workloads.

Performance

Rendering that scales to massive visual trees

Avalonia 12.0 delivers up to 1,867% increase in FPS on complex layouts, tested against scenes with 350,000 unique visual elements. These gains are the result of significant investment in the rendering pipeline, including deferred composition and optimised dirty-rect tracking.

“Avalonia gives us the performance and flexibility to build robust, cross-platform PAM solutions without compromise.”

David Hervieux

CEO

Strategic

Extend your .NET investment across every platform

Your team’s XAML, C#, and MVVM skills carry directly into Avalonia. If you’re building with WPF, WinForms, or WinUI today, Avalonia gives you a path to a single codebase across Windows, macOS, Linux, mobile, and WebAssembly without discarding what you’ve already built.

Dedicated migration guides for WPF and WinForms map the specific differences, and Avalonia XPF provides binary compatibility for teams that need to run existing WPF applications on new platforms before a full port.

AI-ready development

Give AI agents direct access to your Avalonia UI through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Works with VS Code, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Codex.

• Generate pixel-perfect XAML from screenshots or design specs
• Inspect and modify live UI properties at runtime
• Navigate visual and logical element trees for contextual debugging
• Capture screenshots of any element to verify layout changes

Quick start guide

Create and run your first Avalonia app in three commands. Your app opens on screen after the final step.

Prerequisite: .NET 8 SDK or later. Download .NET

Get started

One codebase. Every platform.

Avalonia is a free, open-source .NET UI framework. Use the XAML and C# skills your team already has to ship production apps across desktop, mobile, and web.