--- title: WPF Modernization in 2026 | daily.dev description: A long-form, vendor-authored guide to modernizing WPF applications, written by someone at Avalonia. It argues most WPF apps in production should stay on WPF,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/wpf-modernization-in-2026-nmrkl2all twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: WPF Modernization in 2026 | daily.dev og:description: A long-form, vendor-authored guide to modernizing WPF applications, written by someone at Avalonia. It argues most WPF apps in production should stay on WPF,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/wpf-modernization-in-2026-nmrkl2all og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/nmRkl2alL.png og:image:alt: WPF Modernization in 2026 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # WPF Modernization in 2026 **[Avalonia UI Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/avalonia-blog)** · 40 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A long-form, vendor-authored guide to modernizing WPF applications, written by someone at Avalonia. It argues most WPF apps in production should stay on WPF, that Avalonia XPF (a cross-platform WPF fork) is the fastest path to macOS/Linux reach, and that Avalonia itself is the best rewrite target when a rewrite is truly warranted. It walks through four underappreciated costs (framework churn, hiring pool, ecosystem, vendor sustainability), then evaluates and largely dismisses .NET MAUI, Uno Platform, OpenSilver, WinUI 3, Blazor Hybrid, and Electron for WPF migrations, closing with pricing for XPF tiers and realistic migration timelines. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is Avalonia XPF and how is it different from rewriting a WPF app in Avalonia? Avalonia XPF is a cross-platform fork of WPF that replaces the Windows-specific rendering (MILCore), windowing, and input layers with cross-platform implementations built on Avalonia, while keeping the same XAML parser, dependency property system, triggers, templates, and data binding. It lets an existing WPF codebase run natively on macOS and Linux with little to no changes, unlike a full Avalonia rewrite which uses a similar but non-identical XAML dialect. _daily.dev surfaces comparisons like this for teams weighing a WPF port against a full rewrite._ ### How much does Avalonia XPF cost for a commercial application? Avalonia XPF pricing has three tiers: the Internal tier is €9,500 per year for WPF applications used inside an organization, the Business tier is €29,500 per year for applications shipped to customers, and mobile/WebAssembly support starts at €124,500 per year. There is no per-deployment fee within any tier and no additional scaling charges beyond the tier price. _Teams budgeting a WPF modernization effort can track pricing details like these on daily.dev._ ### How long does it realistically take to migrate a large WPF application to macOS using Avalonia XPF versus rewriting it in Avalonia? For a roughly 2-million-line WPF application with a typical control mix, an XPF migration to a working macOS build takes about 3 to 6 weeks from first commit, with some trial-to-sale cycles completed in as little as two weeks. A full Avalonia rewrite of a comparably sized application realistically takes six to eighteen months, since it involves porting the UI to a new XAML dialect rather than a direct fork. _daily.dev helps engineers scoping a desktop migration project weigh timelines like these before committing._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [WPF App Modernisation: A Pragmatic Approach](https://daily.dev/posts/wpf-app-modernisation-a-pragmatic-approach-dzhr8wdfe) · Avalonia UI Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [WPF on Mac](https://daily.dev/posts/wpf-on-mac-koy5gvhcw) · Avalonia UI Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Is WPF Dead?](https://daily.dev/posts/is-wpf-dead--xi5rxnzsm) · Avalonia UI Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [XAML.io adds “Migrate from WPF”: run an existing WPF application on the web](https://daily.dev/posts/xaml-io-adds-migrate-from-wpf-run-an-existing-wpf-application-on-the-web-zevserycy) · SD Times · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#.net](https://daily.dev/tags/.net), [#wpf](https://daily.dev/tags/wpf), [#avalonia](https://daily.dev/tags/avalonia) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/wpf-modernization-in-2026-nmrkl2all) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"WPF Modernization in 2026","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/wpf-modernization-in-2026-nmrkl2all","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/wpf-modernization-in-2026-nmrkl2all"},"datePublished":"2026-10-04T13:25:34.389Z","dateModified":"2026-10-04T13:26:00.078Z","description":"A long-form, vendor-authored guide to modernizing WPF applications, written by someone at Avalonia. 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