Microsoft has embraced a cross-platform development paradigm, reshaping its tools and ecosystem over recent years. This shift began with the acquisition of Xamarin, which laid the foundation for a comprehensive development platform spanning devices, operating systems, and cloud environments. Today, this vision has materialized in a robust toolchain powered by Visual Studio, integrated with GitHub for collaboration, and backed by the scalable .NET 6 framework. The result is a seamless development experience, whether you’re building apps for Kubernetes in the cloud or delivering solutions to mobile devices.
A key component of this transformation is the evolution of Xamarin’s Forms UI into .NET’s Multiplatform App UI (MAUI). MAUI simplifies the creation of cross-platform applications with native rendering. But Microsoft hasn’t stopped there. Leveraging the success of the Blazor web UI framework, it has introduced Blazor Hybrid—a powerful new approach that combines web and native technologies. Blazor Hybrid enables developers to build UIs that seamlessly span desktop, mobile, and web platforms, rendering native controls for optimal performance and user experience across all environments.
The adoption of modern development principles further strengthens Blazor Hybrid’s value proposition. One of the most significant lessons from the past decade of web development is the importance of designing APIs first. APIs act as the backbone for applications, enabling multiple UI clients to interact consistently with a single back end. This approach allows for modular architectures, where services can evolve independently of their clients. Developers can create scalable, predictable systems by separating the back end from the user interface, making API-first design an essential practice for modern software development.
Blazor Hybrid takes these principles and extends them beyond traditional web development. By embedding a rendering surface directly within applications, it eliminates the need for a browser while retaining the flexibility of web-like development. This model allows applications to function offline, which is particularly valuable in controlled environments such as Windows 11 SE for education. By combining the strengths of API-driven design and native rendering, Blazor Hybrid offers a unified framework for building high-performance applications that meet the demands of modern cross-platform development.