7/01/2014

Pros & Cons of Xamarin

Pros

- Cross-platform: the same code runs on both iOS and Android

- As a cross-platform solution, it's based on native UI compoentns so the performance is not as awful as PhoneGap etc.

- As an app oriented solution, an experienced Xamarin developer will be able to deliver an app faster than game based solutions like Cocos2d-js

- Best for a mockup apps since they don't require a lot of UI customisation, i.e. doing the most basic things

 

Cons

- As a cross-platform solution it doesn't support platforms as many as Cocos2d-js does

- Unlike Cocos2d-js which is free, Xamarin costs $999 a year for business plan

- Lastest support for each platform (iOS / Android) is always slow since Xamarin doesn't have a better channel to work with Apple & Google than any other native developers

- To become a good Xamarin developer, one needs to master C#, .NET, Xamarin SDK, Xamarin IDE / VS, so:

- An experienced Xamarin developer is hard to find and the eco system based on Xamarin is not as strong as native iOS / Android community, e.g. in stackoverflow tags

- android: 603,241

- objective-c: 211,677

- xamarin: 13703

- swift: 37441 (and it's only released less than half a year while xamarin is there for years)

- Smaller ecosystem means it's harder to find answers and will lead to longer time of problem solving

- Harder to integrate with open source iOS / Android libraries

- Harder to make an app with a well-designed UI

 

3 comments:

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Unknown said...

Here is a great infographic that shows the basic info about Xamarin: http://gloriumtech.com/blog/xamarin-development-mobile-apps/
I think it can be useful who wants to get to know its main features.