On March 31, 2016, Microsoft announced that they were merging all of Xamarin's software with every version of Microsoft Visual Studio including Visual Studio Community, and this added various Xamarin features to come pre-installed in Visual Studio such as an iOS emulator.
We recommend you use .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI), the evolution of Xamarin.Forms, which lets you create Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps with a modern, cross-platform framework.
Xamarin provides developers two ways to build a mobile app. Either by using Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android (main approach) or by using Xamarin.Forms which is a framework for simple apps and prototypes.
Xamarin brings open source .NET to mobile development, enabling every developer to build truly native apps for any device in C# and F#. We’re excited for your contributions in continuing our mission to make it fast, easy, and fun to build great mobile apps.
Developed by Microsoft, Xamarin allows developers to create applications for Android, iOS, and Windows using a single codebase written in C#. This means you can write your app’s code once and deploy it across multiple platforms, significantly reducing development time and effort.
Xamarin is no longer supported by Microsoft as of May 1, 2024. Learn how to migrate your Xamarin apps to .NET MAUI, the evolution of Xamarin.Forms, which lets you build native apps for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows with a single codebase.
The Xamarin Developer Center is full of resources to help you get started with mobile development, with documentation on configuring your development environment, iOS, Android, Xamarin.Forms, and more.
Xamarin is no longer supported by Microsoft as of May 1, 2024. Learn how to migrate your Xamarin apps to .NET MAUI, the evolution of Xamarin.Forms, which lets you build native apps for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows with a single codebase.