Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Avalonia VS JavaFX

Compare Avalonia VS JavaFX and see what are their differences

Avalonia logo Avalonia

A multi-platform .NET UI framework

JavaFX logo JavaFX

JavaFX is the next step in the evolution of Java as a rich client platform.
  • Avalonia Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-05-01
  • JavaFX Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-18

Avalonia features and specs

  • Cross-Platform
    Avalonia supports Windows, macOS, and Linux, enabling developers to write a single codebase that runs on multiple platforms.
  • MVVM Support
    Avalonia has strong support for the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern, which can help developers create maintainable and scalable applications.
  • Rich Styling System
    Avalonia provides a powerful styling system similar to CSS, giving developers the ability to easily customize the appearance of their applications.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source, Avalonia allows developers to contribute to its development, inspect the codebase, and ensure long-term viability without vendor lock-in.
  • Community Support
    Avalonia has an active and growing community, which can be beneficial for troubleshooting issues, finding resources, and sharing knowledge.
  • ReactiveUI Integration
    It integrates seamlessly with ReactiveUI, a powerful reactive programming library, for building dynamic and responsive applications.

Possible disadvantages of Avalonia

  • Maturity
    Avalonia is relatively young compared to more established frameworks like WPF or WinForms, which might result in fewer features and stability issues.
  • Smaller Ecosystem
    Given its younger age, Avalonia has a smaller ecosystem with fewer third-party libraries, tools, and components available for developers.
  • Performance
    Depending on the complexity of the application, performance may not be on par with native frameworks, especially on resource-intensive tasks.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers new to Avalonia may face a learning curve, especially if they are not familiar with its MVVM pattern and reactive programming paradigms.
  • Documentation
    Although improving, the documentation for Avalonia might not be as comprehensive or as polished as that of more mature frameworks.
  • Platform-Specific Issues
    Cross-platform development can bring platform-specific issues and inconsistencies that developers need to handle, which can increase complexity.

JavaFX features and specs

  • Rich UI Controls
    JavaFX provides a wide range of built-in UI controls, such as buttons, tables, and charts, which makes it easy to create complex user interfaces.
  • FXML Support
    JavaFX allows developers to use FXML, a scripting interface that enables them to design user interfaces with XML, separating the logic from design, enhancing maintainability.
  • CSS Styling
    The framework supports CSS for styling UI components, offering flexibility in design and the ability to create visually appealing applications.
  • Scene Graph
    JavaFX's scene graph provides a hierarchical structure for managing the layout, simplifying the development of complex UIs with animations and transformations.
  • Cross-Platform
    JavaFX applications are cross-platform, allowing developers to run the same application on different operating systems without modifications.
  • Integration with Java
    As a part of the Java ecosystem, JavaFX integrates seamlessly with existing Java libraries and tools, benefiting from Java's robust environment.

Possible disadvantages of JavaFX

  • Steeper Learning Curve
    Despite its powerful features, JavaFX can be challenging to learn for beginners, especially those not familiar with Java.
  • Limited Third-Party Libraries
    Compared to other UI frameworks like Swing or frameworks outside of Java, JavaFX has a relatively smaller ecosystem of third-party libraries and tools.
  • Performance Issues
    JavaFX might face performance challenges, particularly when dealing with resource-intensive applications or those requiring very high responsiveness.
  • Mobile Support Limitations
    JavaFX's support for mobile platforms is not as strong as other frameworks, requiring additional tools or platforms like Gluon for mobile development.
  • Market Adoption
    The adoption of JavaFX in the industry is not as widespread as other technologies like React or Angular, which might influence community support and development resources.

Avalonia videos

A Cross Platform .NET UI Framework - Hello World in Avalonia UI

More videos:

  • Review - Nikita Tsukanov - AvaloniaUI - cross-platform XAML-oriented .NET UI framework
  • Review - Avalonia XAML debugging. Where is your WPF/UWP/Xamarin.Forms now?

JavaFX videos

JavaFX Project Car Review #6 Homepage GUI and Controller

More videos:

  • Review - JavaFX will be removed from JDK 11
  • Review - JavaFX Projects Car Review #2 Login and GUI Controllers

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Avalonia and JavaFX)
Development Tools
76 76%
24% 24
Rapid Application Development
Cross-Platform Development
.Net
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Avalonia and JavaFX. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Avalonia should be more popular than JavaFX. It has been mentiond 133 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Avalonia mentions (133)

  • Uno Platform Studio: GUI Designer for Cross-Platform .NET Applications
    C# and Uno, C# and Avalonia (https://avaloniaui.net/), Dart and Flutter (https://flutter.dev/) are all interesting options for WebAssembly application development. It's nice to be able to do cross platform desktop applications that can also be compiled for web delivery. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#
    Slightly off topic, but this was built using Avalonia, which I have never heard of. Has anyone used it? The promise sounds impressive (beautiful, cross-platform applications from a single .NET codebase), just wondering whether it actually delivers? https://avaloniaui.net/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Visual Basic 6 rebuilt in C# – complete with form designer and IDE in browser
    It's written in Avalonia so you could easily compile a desktop version if you wanted, although the author doesn't package one explicitly https://avaloniaui.net/ https://github.com/BAndysc/AvaloniaVisualBasic6. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • A comparison of Rust's borrow checker to the one in C#
    You should checkout AvalonuiaUI[0] or unoPlatform[1] if wanting to target web/mobile/window/linux/macOS if building for the web online, asp.net core runs on Linux servers as well as windows and there's MAUI [2] ( not a fan of this), you are better-off with with the others. In summary c# and .NET is cross-platform, third party developers build better frameworks and tools for other platform while Microsoft prefers... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Should JavaScript be split into two languages? Google proposal divides opinion
    > And even if it were accomplished in a central open source library like Flutter, that adds a considerable amount to the package size of any application. The download really isn't much different to a typical website. That Flutter demo in wasm is 2 megabytes. Avalonia UI's WebAssembly uses canvas in C#: https://avaloniaui.net/ Uno Platform's WebAssembly implementation uses the DOM rather than drawing to... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
View more

JavaFX mentions (37)

  • JBang, the missing scripting tool of the Java ecosystem
    JavaFX is a desktop and UI framework. Its official website is openjfx.io and is also supported by Gluon which provides additional UI components and brings mobile app support to JavaFX. JBang supports this frameowrk and can be used to create signle file JavaFX applications. - Source: dev.to / 5 days ago
  • Home to Anything JavaFX Related
    It has a very active community, nothing is dead when there are active users. It has been living as independent package for a long time https://openjfx.io. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Book review - Frontend Development with JavaFX and Kotlin
    Other topics handled in this chapter are Kotlin utilities for JavaFX and direct downloads of JavaFX releases from openjfx.io. The author also explains why FXML is not used in the book. I agree with his view that the XML files are not as dynamic as code and bring a mix of technologies into your project. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Setting up Continuous Integration
    One, I don't understand Java environments really well. All I have done so far is create some GUI applications using JavaFX. Wish I could share my code, but unfortunately, its part of my assignments and can't be open-sourced. Second, the instructions I found in the Contributing docs were bare-minimum, and kinda hard to follow for a beginner. An experienced Java developer would get them really quickly, no doubt... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How to use the JavaFX library Medusa to display weather data
    JavaFX (an open source, next generation client application platform for desktop, mobile and embedded systems) has many useful out the box UI controls to build modern interactive desktop apps. These include buttons, checkboxes, list views, labels etc, that can be configured and styled in countless ways. I’ve using them for many years at work building mapping apps! - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Avalonia and JavaFX, you can also consider the following products

Uno Platform - Build Mobile, Desktop and WebAssembly apps with C# and XAML.

Qt - Powerful, flexible and easy to use, Qt will help you not only meet your tight deadline, but also reduce the maintainable code by an astonishing percentage.

Electron - Build cross platform desktop apps with web technologies

wxWidgets - wxWidgets: Cross-Platform GUI Library

Flutter - Build beautiful native apps in record time 🚀

GTK - GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces.