Two UI Paradigms

When targeting Android in VS 2026, you choose between .NET MAUI and Jetpack Compose. Understanding the tradeoffs helps you pick the right tool for your project.

.NET MAUI — Cross-Platform

• ✅ One codebase for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows
• ✅ First-class Visual Studio tooling, XAML designer, Hot Reload
• ✅ C# — familiar to .NET developers
• ⚠️ Platform-specific customization requires Handlers

Jetpack Compose — Android Native

• ✅ Google's modern declarative UI toolkit for Android
• ✅ Deep Kotlin coroutines and Flow integration
• ✅ Best-in-class Material You components
• ⚠️ Android-only — no code sharing with iOS or Windows

A Quick Compose Taste

@Composable
fun GreetingCard(name: String) {
    Card(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
        Column(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
            Text(text = "Hello, $name!",
                 style = MaterialTheme.typography.headlineMedium)
            Button(onClick = {}) { Text("Tap") }
        }
    }
}