How to Address Xamarin Migration to .NET MAUI and Secure Your App Future Growth

In a fast-moving modern software development landscape, keeping ahead is not a luxury; it is an imperative. With Microsoft having wound down support for Xamarin in May 2024, any business built on this tech stack is now in a tough corner—either migrate from Xamarin to .NET MAUI or remain left out. This change is serious. A slow migration means exposing your application to security risks and a lack of compatibility. Moreover, the lack of upgrades to the tech stack slows innovation and might further harm your company’s reputation and growth in a competitive market.

With my close to a decade’s experience in the mind-boggling framework of .NET, guiding businesses through critical transitions. I understand the challenges you face. While my expertise in .NET MAUI is more recent, my solid foundation in Xamarin and .NET equips me to support you during this pivotal change. This article provides actionable strategies and insights, outlining the risks of delaying migration, key steps for a smooth transition, and application modernization strategies that ensure your new MAUI-based solution meets today’s needs and is ready for tomorrow. Whether you’re a tech leader concerned about performance or a non-tech executive focused on efficiency, this guide will help you navigate the migration process to keep your application competitive.

Migrate From Xamarin to MAUI or Not to Migrate?

As support for Xamarin has ended, businesses must now make a critical decision: whether to migrate to .NET MAUI or continue with an unsupported framework. This choice will have long-term implications for the performance, security, and scalability of your application. While there may be concerns about whether .NET MAUI is fully ready for large projects, these must be weighed against the significant risks of relying on outdated technology.

The final decision to migrate from Xamarin to MAUI will still have to be based on your business goals and the current status of your application. Below, I will outline key scenarios in which you should or not consider upgrading.

Three Cases When You Might Not Need to Migrate From Xamarin to MAUI

1. Stable and Working Application: In the case of a well-functioning Xamarin application, which did not face any major issues, there was never an urgent need to migrate toward .NET MAUI. However, recent changes in platform requirements brought considerable challenges. What this means, concretely, is as follows: For Android, Google now enforces that applications target at least Android 14 (API level 34+) in order to publish updates on the Play Store. Xamarin supports targeting only up to Android 13. And for iOS, application targeting requires iOS 17, whereas Xamarin supports targeting only up to iOS 16. In summary, this prevents you from releasing updates for your existing application on those stores.
2. Minimum or No Plans to Scale: Your business doesn’t need to scale, nor does it have in plan significant updates of the application. That made continuing on Xamarin a valid option. Now, with these new platform restrictions, even maintaining your app doesn’t scale or it does with very basic updates. One possible workaround could be to use the very latest supported preview versions of Xamarin at your own risk. There are no guarantees for their stability. The only robust but resource-intensive solution is migration to .NET 8, which completely fits all recent requirements on platforms. The major risk with this step is to find compatibility for all your libraries with .NET 8.
3. Internal or Enterprise Distribution: If your application is already an enterprise solution and you are distributing it through internal stores rather than the Apple or Google stores, then the need for urgency to migrate is not that dire. You are good with Xamarin-provided your application is working fine, meeting the requirements set within. However, there are also imminent dangers in continuing to use Xamarin, such as possible security weaknesses and the potential not to support it later on, so migration to other platforms should be considered for long-term strategy.

Three Cases When Migration From Xamarin to MAUI Is Necessary

1. Scalability and Growth Plans: In case you plan to scale your application by increasing user load, adding new features, or expanding to other platforms, migration from Xamarin to .NET MAUI becomes highly necessary. MAUI’s improved performance, single-project architecture, and broader reach of supported platforms make it a more robust solution for growing applications. If not migrated, your scalability might go haywire and thus hamper the full potential of your app in the future.
2. Cross-platform Requirements: Xamarin has very limited support for macOS and Windows; this can turn out to be huge if your application requires it to work on both platforms. MAUI is equipped with comprehensive support for iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows—rendering it the ultimate solution in the case of applications that need actual cross-platforming. Opting to convert your Xamarin form output into MAUI means you get to ensure a consistent experience across devices and operating systems.
3. Desktop Application Integration: In case your application includes or is planning to include a desktop component, then it will be highly recommended to migrate to MAUI. MAUI architecture has been tailored for mobile and desktop platforms without any defects, far better than Xamarin. It simply means that you would enhance the performance of your application on the desktop by migrating from Xamarin to MAUI and making it versatile with much more powerful features.

Strategic Considerations for Xamarin to MAUI Migration

While the technical considerations in benefits of migration from Xamarin to .NET MAUI are evident, it’s also important to understand its strategic implications. Keeping bound to an abandoned and unmaintained framework introduces huge risks not limited to security threats through security vulnerabilities, loss of compatibility with new OS versions, and indispensably reputational damage due to the absence of innovations under the umbrella. Contrarily, how migration to MAUI will save your application for long-term success is by ensuring that it stays competitive and current with the changing technology.

Business goals, the current state of your app, and your future roadmap are factors that are going to define the migration or not migration from Xamarin to MAUI.

If you focus on growth, cross-functionality, and integration with desktops, then the migration to MAUI is not just advised but quite needed. However, if your application is stable and there are no immediate plans for growth, you may want to delay the migration until it better aligns with your strategic objectives. In any case, monitoring and being ready to update when proper timing exists is key.

Xamarin Migration to MAUI: Understanding the Transition

Moving from Xamarin to .NET MAUI is a transition for the whole Microsoft cross-platform development ecosystem. Understanding these transitions is crucial for successfully migrating your applications and ensuring they continue to receive support in the future. Here are the main transitions occurring in the ecosystem:

1. Xamarin.Forms Replaced by MAUI

Perhaps the most relevant rebrand in a long while: Xamarin.Forms has evolved into .NET MAUI.

Xamarin.Forms has been one of the strongest layouts for many cross-platform apps, allowing UI code to be shared across Android and iOS. However, with its end-of-life on May 1, 2024, all future development and updates will now be carried out on the .NET MAUI framework. This makes migration to MAUI a necessity for any business that wants to stay updated with changing times and remain competitive with the latest tools and features.

.NET MAUI builds on the base of Xamarin.Forms but represents a much easier and powerful way to go into cross-platform development. You can easily use .NET MAUI to create iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows applications—oh, and Linux—all from a single code base. Apart from the beauty of ease in development, shifting to .NET MAUI improves performance and integration into the latest mobile and desktop operating systems. If you are considering migrating from Xamarin to MAUI, then this is the most critical migration.

2. Convert Xamarin.Android to .NET for Android

Xamarin.Android now appears .NET for Android, but you must note that .NET for Android is more of a rebranding than anything substantive. This can be attested to the fact that .NET for Android is actually a continuation of Xamarin.Android, built from the same source code repository as before. In project structure setup, exactly all that Microsoft describes in its documentation, which has drastically changed nothing, it is sort of fine-tuning the available tools.

For developers who previously worked with Xamarin.Android, this should be quite easy. But it’s nevertheless important to follow the Microsoft guidelines for configuring your projects correctly while migrating from Xamarin to MAUI for Android.

3. Convert Xamarin.iOS to .NET for iOS

In the same way, Xamarin.iOS has become .NET for iOS. That is very similar to the previous point with .NET for Android—not a big change in the technology itself, and the development practices are still the same because .NET for iOS comes yet from the same xamarin-macios repository. From a developer’s previous point of view in Xamarin.iOS, shifting now to .NET for iOS shall be much smoother and there shouldn’t be any major changes in the development process.

In this regard, it is understood that .NET for iOS is not some new modern tech, but a further evolution of Xamarin iOS. Such continuity makes the conversion of Xamarin to MAUI an operation way simpler while maintaining your application’s stability and performance as it behaves at the moment.

4. Xamarin.Mac to .NET MAUI for Mac

Lastly, Xamarin.Mac migrated to .NET for Mac. This is basing it on Mac Catalyst, an altogether different build from what would stand for Xamarin.Mac, which in its table of contents, will form the macos-bindings portion of the xamarin-macios repository. Like the other transitions, .NET for Mac is not introducing a totally new technology but a rebranding and tidying up of the existing Xamarin Mac framework.

Moving from Xamarin to MAUI, for enterprises looking forward to evolving their business with macOS applications, means that they can sustain a solution of their applications with contemporary tools and technologies from Microsoft, which would be compatible with any macOS updates incoming.

Strategic Consideration

Switching from Xamarin to MAUI should not be presented as just a technical move; rather, it should be treated as a strategic move that parallels your development practices with the future course of action for Microsoft’s ecosystem. This rebrand from Xamarin to .NET MAUI is retrenching and improving existing frameworks—so better performance, easier project management, and more robust support for cross-platform development.

However, it is important to approach such migration with a clear strategy. Businesses should assess their current applications, some of which would need changes in their configurations, and the road to the new world needs to be well-planned so that it is not very disruptive. The involvement of skilled developers, who are experienced in Xamarin and .NET MAUI, helps in making the process of your applications migrating easier and makes them fair the changes in the underlying platforms, allowing the applications to continue functioning and exploiting new capabilities on offer from .NET MAUI.

Read also:

.NET MAUI Mobile App Development: How to Build Cross-Platform Apps

How to Migrate Xamarin to MAUI

Speaking about the application migration from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI, it is important to understand that this is not an upgrade but a big replatforming effort. Replatforming typically refers to the movement of an application to another platform or framework to enhance performance, scalability, maintenance, and access to different features. Now, the case of shifting from Xamarin to MAUI perfectly fits the definition of application replatforming, for a couple of reasons:

1. Replatforming: Convert Xamarin Forms to MAUI

.NET MAUI is a great evolution step forward from Xamarin.Forms. There are changes in architecture, project structure, and how platform-specific code is to be handled. Migration to MAUI often implies a different approach to certain parts of your application. If you’re migrating from Xamarin.Forms, the changes may not be as significant, and much of the process may involve application refactoring rather than rewriting from scratch, but this still depends heavily on the specific project and its implementation.

However, when migrating from Xamarin Native to MAUI, you will likely need to completely rewrite the ViewModel layer. Additionally, a new design will need to be created for MAUI, and the UI layer, along with the layout, will have to be rewritten from scratch. The rest of the code can likely be reused with minimal changes.

2. Code and Project Structure Changes in Xamarin to MAUI Migration

Surely one of the most significant parts of transitioning from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI lies in updating your project files and reworking code with respect to new patterns brought to light by MAUI. This is far from being a plain upgrade process; it frequently requires a rewrite, especially in large parts of the UI and ViewModel layers in the case of Xamarin Native.

3. Leveraging New Features in Xamarin to MAUI Migration

.NET MAUI ships with a vast number of new capabilities, which enrich the development experience and the performance of your application. It achieves this in further improved integration on the larger .NET ecosystem, improved performance due to a fresh, fully-optimized rendering engine, and a stack that has always championed a unified way of handling many platforms extending also to Windows. To fully leverage such new features, you may need to adapt your application, which in turn is somewhat similar to the exercise of replatforming your application. The aim, however, is in most cases not to simply move to another platform but to unlock new capabilities that were out of reach before.

In summary, the migration from Xamarin.Forms to NET MAUI is a strategic move where it is more than a simple upgrade in version. It practically requires re-platforming holistically, and all planning and foresight into the new framework, coupled with some potential keenness on changing your application to kinetically take advantage of all the opportunities MAUI should offer. Positioning your application for improved performance, expanded support across platforms, and further growth toward future improvements, these changes will only be in place.

The following is a chart showing a comparison between Xamarin.Forms and .NET MAUI to really understand visually what the migration looks like:

You would approach this migration ready and fully equipped by looking at .NET MAUI as more than an improvement; as a chance for re-platforming. That doesn’t mean migration is merely moving. It’s an investment into the application’s future—the app becoming more strong, flexible, and following contemporary practices.

Best Practices to Migrate From Xamarin Forms to MAUI

Let’s overview the things you as a CTO or Solution Architect can face when conducting a migration from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI, and the best practices for managing this transition seamlessly.

1. Checking the Codebase and Selecting a Strategy for Xamarin to MAUI Migration

The process starts by first completely assessing your existing codebase. This will help determine the best migration method to be used—whether you need a manual migration or whether you can make use of tools like .NET Upgrade Assistant. Major and customized projects may require a manual approach to software audit. This might be a little time-consuming, but it’s pretty dope insofar as it will ensure that all your application components get properly migrated to the new SDK-style project format underpinning .NET MAUI. Although the .NET Upgrade Assistant will make this sort of migration easier—since it goes on to convert the project files and update the dependencies—it’s an enticing proposition for smaller projects.

2. Planning Performance Enhancements in Xamarin to MAUI Migration

Of special importance during this migration process is planning. Beyond just updating code, you should be thinking about how MAUI came about in providing performance enhancements and a new way to work with the native API surface. Moving from the renderer architecture in Xamarin to the handler architecture in MAUI is a major change that must be approached with extra caution so that you make sure your application remains performant and retains its user experience across all targeted platforms.

3. Post-Migration Testing and Dependency Management After Upgrade From Xamarin to MAUI

After the migration is done, thorough testing becomes important. This shall be a breadth-first test over all supported platforms to figure out and fix incompatibility or performance bottlenecks that have been created during migration. Key to ensuring the smooth running and maintainability of the application is managing dependencies after a migration.

4. Strategic Fit to the Microsoft Ecosystem

What Xamarin to MAUI migration is basically doing at this juncture goes far beyond a technical upgrade; it is a strategic alignment with a fast-changing ecosystem under Microsoft’s stewardship. With proper planning, detailing, and future consideration of application scalability and maintainability, assure yourself that your application will have great value in the future from both business and technological standpoints.

Xamarin to MAUI Migration Challenges and Potential Hurdles

While this offers a great chance to improve your application, migrating from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI is not exactly a piece of cake. Knowing the probable challenges in advance helps you get prepared and navigate through your migration in a way that is much more effective. Some of the key challenges you may face when migrating from Xamarin to MAUI include:

1. Project Structure and Layout Changes in Xamarin to MAUI Migration

One of the most frequent pains that we experience when migrating from Xamarin.Forms to MAUI relates to the changes in project structure and layouts. Well, MAUI does bring about the advent of a new project format, but this organization is not exactly how things were set up in Xamarin.Forms, and so is the layout approach. Quite often, developers will find that some of these layouts behave differently, and thus one needs to spend just that little bit of extra time redeveloping and optimizing those user interfaces to fit in seamlessly with the MAUI architecture.

2. Custom Renderers vs. Handlers in Convert Xamarin to MAUI

Custom renderers are essentially one big part of creating platform-specific UI in Xamarin.Forms. The plain truth is that MAUI has swapped out custom renderers for an architectural pattern in designing platform-specific UI called handlers. This could be a rather complicated process, especially when the target project has pretty heavy use of custom renderers. Well-versed handling of the MAUI framework with the ability to strategically plan around this might be time-intensive. This also opens up ways to migrate and update UI components.

3. Platform-Specific Challenges During Xamarin to MAUI Migration

For many developers, the most evident pains in the migration from Xamarin to MAUI are, but not limited to, Android-specific issues. The ways MAUI structures and handles stuff on Android, in comparison to Xamarin.Forms, are often a vast vortex filled with hidden bugs and performance woes. This only means that as developers use further workaround techniques and trials, they have additional time and trouble-shooting invested so that their applications can work appropriately on these devices.

4. Managing Large Codebases in Xamarin to MAUI Migration

It is, after all, more pragmatic to migrate smaller and less complex code bases. Of course, there’s no denying that even a big and complex code base, especially those around and over 500 pages or featuring considerable business logic, poses definite migration challenges. Just imagine the amount of code you would need to review, refactor, and test—gargantuan. There is a way around this challenge, as well: You can further divide the phases of the migration process into smaller and more manageable pieces. For example, you can migrate just one page at a time. However, it needs to be planned and methodical to avoid stepping into issues that are new to the environment while going through the migration.

5. Bug Fixes and Workarounds in Xamarin to MAUI Migration

The bugs are encountered while migrating code from Xamarin to MAUI in two ways: they either crop up because of the specifics that MAUI requires or arise due to inconsistent behavior with certain scenarios in Xamarin.Forms. While the MAUI community is active in identifying and fixing bugs, more often the developer has to make a workaround on his own in the act of inquisition. This will take knowing the latest moves and being ready to adjust them because new fixes are rolled out.

Strategic Considerations for Overcoming Challenges

It requires a strategic way to navigate all these challenges. This means planning, pulling it apart into smaller ones, such as to handle manageable tasks, and taking advantage of the experience of developers who are really well-acquainted with Xamarin and MAUI. Be prepared for these snags, and with that, you will make sure the Xamarin to MAUI migration goes as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

Although migration is a process that has challenges, it gives you a great opportunity to optimize the application in relation to performance and alignment toward the latest advancements in the .NET ecosystem. If you can wrestle down the expected challenges, you will be best positioned to extract the most benefits from .NET MAUI and guarantee seamless operation in the years that lie ahead.

Why Migrate Your Xamarin App to MAUI With MobiDev

It’s critical to upgrade your legacy Xamarin app to .NET MAUI to remain competitive, secure, and scalable. MobiDev understands the intricacies of this step and proposes a smooth transition with the use of relevant experience in application modernization services and .NET development.

We’ve been building, scaling, and modernizing software products since 2009—bringing vast experience to each project. Our seasoned consultants and engineers are skilled at performing a detailed software audit of your current codebase and infrastructure. This helps us pinpoint any existing issues and be able to define a clear path to remove them, ensuring an ultra-smooth migration from Xamarin to MAUI.

With enhanced .NET competencies, we become quite able to handle the most complex migration. Whether you need a dedicated team or seek to augment your in-house capabilities with seasoned .NET engineers, MobiDev delivers the right resources to meet your needs.

By choosing MobiDev, you get a partner in Xamarin app modernization who will be committed to your long-term success. Our full-cycle approach lets you have your .NET MAUI migration not only smooth but strategically aligned with your business goals. If you are interested in learning more about how we can help with your Xamarin application modernization, please contact us.