I migrated a Xamarin app to MAUI last year and it was a nightmare so I'm building a tool to fix the worst parts. Would love your honest feedback.
Hi everyone,
About a year ago I went through the Xamarin → .NET MAUI migration on a real production app. I started with Microsoft's Upgrade Assistant expecting it to do most of the heavy lifting and it really disappointed.
Some things converted fine, but in some areas it really seemed to struggle, especially when it came to our custom renderers and third party NuGet packages. It took me a ton of hours to finish polishing it up and getting it ready for release. Many hours digging through Stack Overflow threads and Github issues.
I've been working on something to try to fix that problem, specifically, it's a web tool that focuses on the parts of the migration that the Upgrade Assistant doesn't handle very well. It's still in development, but to give a broad overview:
- You upload your `csproj file(s)
- It scans every NuGet dependency and tells you: Compatible / Needs Replacement / Now Built Into MAUI / Abandoned
- For each incompatible package, it suggests the MAUI alternative with context on *why* and links to the replacement
- It flags custom renderer patterns and gives you guidance on converting them to handlers
- You get a structured migration report you can actually work from (or hand to a client)
The point of this is not to replace the Upgrade Assistant, it's just to handle a lot of the research-heavy part so you spend less time down Github rabbit holes and more time actually migrating.
As I mentioned, this is still in development. I wanted to share the idea here first and get honest feedback from people who've actually been through this, before I go further.
Some things I'm unsure about:
- Is NuGet compatibility the biggest pain point, or is there something else that cost you more time?
- Is there a specific part of the migration you wish you'd had better tooling for?
Happy to answer any questions or just commiserate about renderer migrations. 🙂
Thanks!