Building Cross Platform Mobile and Desktop Apps with VS 2026 and .NET MAUI

By Kevin McNeish

For years, .NET developers have been incredibly productive building Windows, web, and backend systems. Today, with Visual Studio 2026 and .NET MAUI, that same productivity extends cleanly into mobile and desktop app development—without forcing you to abandon your existing skills or tooling.

At a high level, .NET MAUI (Multi-platform App UI) lets you build native applications for iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS from a single shared codebase using C# and .NET. If you’re already a .NET developer, it’s one of the most natural ways to move into cross-platform app development.

.NET MAUI has been publicly available since 2022, when it debuted with .NET 6, and it has evolved substantially with each .NET release. I’ve been using .NET MAUI since it first came out, and I’ve personally experienced that evolution firsthand. Early versions showed a lot of promise, but over time Microsoft has delivered meaningful improvements in stability, performance, tooling, and platform consistency. With each release, rough edges have been smoothed out, common pain points addressed, and real-world development scenarios better supported.

Today, MAUI is solid and production-ready, backed not only by years of engineering investment, but also by extensive community feedback and real-world usage—making it a far more mature and reliable framework than it was in its early days.

Below is a high-level look at why .NET developers are increasingly choosing .NET MAUI—and what benefits it brings to the table.

One Codebase, Many Platforms

One of the biggest advantages of .NET MAUI is it allows you to share the majority of your code across platforms:

• Business logic

• Data access

• View Models

• Validation and rules

• Networking and services

You’re not rewriting the same app four times. Instead, you focus on what your app does, not constantly re-implementing it for different platforms.

Platform-specific code still exists when you need it—but it’s isolated, explicit, and optional.

This diagram from the Microsoft Learn web site, illustrates how .NET MAUI sits between your application code and the underlying operating systems to enable true cross-platform development. Your app code lives at the top and targets .NET MAUI rather than individual platforms.

Beneath that, MAUI provides a device abstraction layer made up of shared controls and APIs, allowing you to write UI and application logic once while MAUI handles the platform-specific details. That abstraction layer is implemented on top of platform bindings for .NET for Android, .NET for iOS, .NET for Mac Catalyst, and WinUI 3 on Windows, all of which in turn run on the common .NET runtimes and libraries.

At the bottom are the native operating systems—Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows—where the app ultimately executes as a fully native application. The result is a single, shared codebase that produces native apps on every supported platform without sacrificing performance or platform integration.

Native Apps—Not “Wrapped” Apps

Apps built with .NET MAUI are fully native on each platform, using native UI controls, delivering native performance, integrating directly with native platform APIs, and producing true native app packages for deployment. This is not a web view wrapped in a mobile shell—when a MAUI app runs on iOS or Android, it behaves like a first-class citizen on that platform, matching the look, feel, and performance users expect from a native application.

Familiar Tools and Languages for .NET Developers

If you already work in the .NET ecosystem, .NET MAUI feels immediately familiar:

• C# as the primary language

• XAML for UI layout (or pure C# if you prefer)

• Design patterns that align with WPF and Xamarin experience

• Visual Studio 2026 debugging, designers, and tooling

There’s no need to learn Swift, Kotlin, or entirely new frameworks just to build mobile apps. Your existing .NET investment carries forward.

First-Class Desktop and Mobile Support

Unlike many mobile-first frameworks that focus primarily on phones and tablets, .NET MAUI treats desktop platforms as true first-class citizens alongside mobile—which is actually quite rare in the cross-platform world. With MAUI, the same application codebase can target Windows using WinUI, macOS via Mac Catalyst, and mobile platforms such as iOS and Android, without forcing developers into separate projects or fundamentally different architectures. Very few frameworks offer this level of genuine parity across both mobile and desktop while still producing native applications on each platform.

This unified approach is especially valuable for scenarios where applications need to live comfortably across multiple form factors, such as line-of-business systems, internal tools, data-heavy enterprise applications, and companion desktop and mobile apps that share the same workflows and data models. By working from a single solution, teams can deliver a consistent user experience across phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, reduce long-term maintenance costs, and evolve features in one place instead of duplicating effort across multiple codebases.

Strong Performance and Modern .NET Features

With modern .NET releases, MAUI benefits from:

• Faster startup times

• Improved memory management

• Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation where applicable

• Async/await everywhere

• Modern language features in C#

You’re building on the same performance-focused runtime that powers high-scale backend systems.

Excellent for Enterprise and Line-of-Business Apps

NET MAUI shines in enterprise scenarios because it fits naturally into the existing .NET ecosystem. It allows teams to share domain models and business logic with backend services, maintain strong typing and compile-time safety throughout the application, and take advantage of built-in dependency injection for clean, testable architectures. These capabilities make it easier to build complex, data-driven applications with confidence and consistency across the stack.

In addition, MAUI supports secure authentication flows and offline-first data scenarios that are common in real-world enterprise and field applications. For teams already using .NET on the server, MAUI enables a clean, end-to-end development experience—from the database and services layer all the way to the mobile and desktop user interface—using the same language, tools, and architectural patterns.

Backed by the .NET Ecosystem

.NET MAUI is developed and supported by Microsoft as part of the unified .NET platform.

That means:

• Long-term platform support

• Continuous improvements aligned with .NET releases

• Deep integration with Visual Studio

• A growing ecosystem of libraries and tools

It’s not an experimental side project—it’s part of the core .NET roadmap.

Is .NET MAUI Right for You?

.NET MAUI is an especially strong fit for developers who already work with .NET and C#, and want to extend those skills into mobile and desktop app development without maintaining multiple, disconnected codebases. Instead of learning entirely new languages and frameworks, teams can continue using familiar tools, patterns, and workflows while targeting iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS from a single solution.

It’s also a strong choice when native performance and direct access to platform features are important, particularly for enterprise and data-driven applications. While MAUI doesn’t eliminate every platform-specific concern, it dramatically reduces duplication and complexity, allowing developers to stay productive and focused while building high-quality, native cross-platform applications.

MM .NET and .NET MAUI

MM .NET and .NET MAUI complement each other extremely well, especially for developers building modern, cross-platform applications. MM .NET provides a proven architectural foundation—business objects, patterns, and productivity tooling that help teams structure applications cleanly and consistently—while .NET MAUI extends that foundation to native mobile and desktop apps. Together, they allow developers to reuse the same core business logic, validation, and data access layers across web, desktop, and mobile experiences, reducing duplication and long-term maintenance costs.

For teams already relying on MM .NET to accelerate backend or Windows development, pairing it with MAUI creates a cohesive, end-to-end solution that brings those same productivity gains to iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.

Final Thoughts

With Visual Studio 2026 and .NET MAUI, cross-platform app development feels like a natural extension of the .NET world—not a detour into something unfamiliar.

For .NET developers looking to expand into mobile and desktop apps without starting from scratch, .NET MAUI offers a powerful, modern, and highly productive path forward.