# Avalonia UI

51 Hacker News commenters recommended Avalonia UI and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Open-source .NET UI framework that runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and the web, often called a spiritual successor to WPF. Critics say its messaging is unclear.

## Why people recommend it

- Cross-platform on Windows, Mac, Linux (6 comments): "Avalonia already works fine on Linux, allowing anyone to build a cross-platform .NET GUI application." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45896875)) "With Avalonia you have a good cross-platform solution" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46524887)) "It supports Windows/Mac/Linux/WASM natively already." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45901822))
- WPF-like, successor to WPF (4 comments): "their own free regular WPF-like Avalonia UI toolkit is already the standard for cross desktop development" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480550)) "go straight for AvaloniaUI, as it is quite similar to wpf, actively devloped and cross-platform" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47481694)) "Avalonia is a spiritual successor to WPF but FOSS and cross-platform." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47482306))
- Free, open source, licensing rarely an issue (4 comments): "Drastically less likely to get a rug pull, licensing wouldn't really be an issue for any commercial project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47483331)) "Avalonia is a spiritual successor to WPF but FOSS and cross-platform." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47482306)) "spiritual successor to WPF, cross-platform, and open source" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48140867))
- Strong technical quality and community (4 comments): "Avalonia is the superior framework when it comes to technical quality as well as community response" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47481955)) "often considered as one of the best way to make desktop app with .NET" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480001)) "Avalonia is considered quite powerful from what Ive heard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47696347))

## What people warn about

- Web platform overhead and poor fit (2 comments): "I don't think their web platform is a good idea for new projects because of the massive overhead" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45898026)) "If you create a Flutter or Kotlin Compose Multiplatform or AvaloniaUI app and put it on the web, it's not going to feel right" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48141861))
- Feels underdeveloped and rough (3 comments): "I'm truly surprised that it feels that underdeveloped. They market Avalonia as a direct replacement for WPF too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252579)) "it has all the strengths and weaknesses of WinForms and feels about exactly as unfinished and rough as WinForms" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252430)) "Total disaster. Could only get things to run after 10 attempts or so, and was only trying a very basic example." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48336616))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Qt](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qt.md): 191 recommend
- [GTK](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gtk.md): 85 recommend
- [Windows Forms](https://hackerapproved.com/p/winforms.md): 76 recommend
- [SwiftUI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/swiftui.md): 75 recommend
- [Tcl/Tk](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tcl-tk.md): 61 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Avalonia UI", https://hackerapproved.com/p/avalonia/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).