Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Photon Micro GUI VS Uno Platform

Compare Photon Micro GUI VS Uno Platform and see what are their differences

Photon Micro GUI logo Photon Micro GUI

Open-source, resolution independent GUI library in C++

Uno Platform logo Uno Platform

Build Mobile, Desktop and WebAssembly apps with C# and XAML.
  • Photon Micro GUI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-17
  • Uno Platform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-01

Uno Platform

$ Details
free
Platforms
Android iOS MacOS Windows WebAssembly Linux
Startup details
Country
Canada

Photon Micro GUI features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Uno Platform features and specs

  • .NET IDEs
    Seamlessly integrate Uno Platform with Visual Studio, VS Code, and JetBrains Rider for a unified, cross-platform .NET development experience
  • Cross-Platform Development
    Uno Platform allows developers to build applications for multiple platforms (Windows, iOS, Android, WebAssembly, and macOS) using a single codebase, which can significantly reduce development time and effort.
  • Hot Reload
    Instantly see code changes across web, desktop, and mobile apps with Uno Platform's powerful Hot Reload feature
  • Native Performance
    Uno Platform applications leverage native controls and performances of each targeted platform, ensuring that apps run efficiently and provide a smooth user experience.
  • Integration with Visual Studio
    Uno Platform seamlessly integrates with Visual Studio, offering a familiar and powerful development environment for .NET developers with extensive debugging and design tools.
  • Support for XAML
    Uno Platform supports XAML for designing UI, making it easier for developers familiar with Microsoft's WPF, UWP, and Xamarin.Forms to transition their skills and projects to different platforms.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source framework, Uno Platform benefits from community contributions and transparency, allowing developers to examine the code, contribute, or customize the framework to suit their needs.
  • Frequent Updates
    The platform has a robust and active development team, which ensures regular updates, improvements, and new feature additions.

Possible disadvantages of Uno Platform

  • Learning Curve
    Developers who are not familiar with XAML or .NET may find it challenging to get up to speed with the Uno Platform, requiring an investment in learning the technologies involved.
  • Limited Third-Party Library Support
    While Uno Platform is growing, it currently has less extensive third-party library support compared to more established frameworks like React Native or Flutter, which may limit functionality.
  • Performance Overhead in WebAssembly
    While WebAssembly support is a powerful feature, it could introduce performance overhead compared to natively-built web applications, potentially affecting load times and responsiveness.
  • Complexity in Device-Specific Customizations
    Though Uno Platform aims for a unified codebase, implementing platform-specific features or customizations can add complexity and may require conditional compilation or additional code per platform.
  • Dependency on Microsoft Ecosystem
    Uno Platform heavily relies on the Microsoft ecosystem, including tools like Visual Studio, which may not be ideal for developers or teams preferring different development environments or toolchains.

Analysis of Uno Platform

Overall verdict

  • Overall, Uno Platform is a solid choice for developers who are familiar with .NET technologies and are looking to create cross-platform applications efficiently. It provides the flexibility to leverage existing UWP assets on a broader range of devices while maintaining high performance and native user experiences.

Why this product is good

  • Uno Platform is considered good because it allows developers to create cross-platform applications using a single codebase with C# and XAML. It extends the capabilities of UWP (Universal Windows Platform) to other platforms such as iOS, Android, macOS, and WebAssembly. This ability to reuse code across different platforms leads to faster development cycles and cost savings. The platform also supports modern technologies and development practices, such as hot reloads and native controls, which enhance the developer experience and application performance.

Recommended for

  • .NET developers looking to expand their reach across multiple platforms
  • Teams aiming to reduce development time and costs by using a single codebase
  • Projects that can benefit from Code Reuse of UWP assets on non-Windows platforms
  • Enterprises and individuals seeking to leverage existing UWP skills for cross-platform app development

Photon Micro GUI videos

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Uno Platform videos

Uno Platform Part 1

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Photon Micro GUI and Uno Platform)
Rapid Application Development
Development Tools
9 9%
91% 91
Cross-Platform Development
IDE
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Uno Platform seems to be a lot more popular than Photon Micro GUI. While we know about 72 links to Uno Platform, we've tracked only 6 mentions of Photon Micro GUI. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Photon Micro GUI mentions (6)

  • Digital Audio Workstation Front End Development Struggles
    There's a relatively new C++ GUI library literally called "Elements". Not sure how it works though, but the way it looks, and the music background of its creator makes it appear designed for DAWs. https://github.com/cycfi/elements. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Introducing Slint 1.0 - The Next-Generation GUI Toolkit with C++20 APIs
    Further, if you we want a "modern" C++ GUI framework what actually would be modern would be to use mechanisms in the language itself as a quasi-DSL from within the language. This is something like what Joel de Guzman is doing with Elements. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Boost.URL ACCEPTED, get the beta now!
    It's a complex domain. The closest we have at the moment is Elements which hasn't been proposed for Boost (yet?) but is by Joel de Guzman, the primary author of Boost.Spirit. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Is there any MIT/BSD licensed UI framework for C++ ?
    Elements was mentioned as a specific example of an MIT-licensed GUI library on the CPPcast episode from 5 May 2022. Source: about 3 years ago
  • GUI for software, not games, but lighter than Qt ?
    If you don't want to use Qt I honestly think your best bet may be to become an early adopter of cycfi elements depending on your project. Elements is still rough but is useable for small applications. I think when it is finished it will be the best choice for a retained mode GUI library, but right now it is missing a lot of things (e.g. The standard common dialogs, "open", "Save as", etc.) , and has basically zero... Source: about 3 years ago
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Uno Platform mentions (72)

  • Any devs actually getting a leg up using AI tools?
    As-is today, AI tools provide some productivity gains. However, they are not replacements for experienced developers. At Uno Platform we are investing in tools which make developers productive within their current environments, such as Hot Design. Also, we are keeping a close eye and thinking of these useful scenarios to apply AI to, as we don’t believe just adding a simple LLM to it will actually add value. So,... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Servo in 2024: stats, features and donations
    Https://platform.uno/ is an option for building web apps with xaml. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Should JavaScript be split into two languages? Google proposal divides opinion
    > And even if it were accomplished in a central open source library like Flutter, that adds a considerable amount to the package size of any application. The download really isn't much different to a typical website. That Flutter demo in wasm is 2 megabytes. Avalonia UI's WebAssembly uses canvas in C#: https://avaloniaui.net/ Uno Platform's WebAssembly implementation uses the DOM rather than drawing to... - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Should JavaScript be split into two languages? Google proposal divides opinion
    > I'd rather we just move to native cross platform applications and stop using a document browser to build interactive applications Here you go. Do both native and wasm: https://avaloniaui.net/ https://platform.uno/ https://flutter.dev/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Why I'm skeptical of rewriting JavaScript tools in "faster" languages
    Ah, so what you want is Uno. It uses WebAssembly and the DOM: https://platform.uno/ > Why did I even bother replying to you, sigh. I think it's because you're overwrought. Don't fear WebAssembly. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Photon Micro GUI and Uno Platform, you can also consider the following products

IUP Portable User Interface - IUP is a multi-platform toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.

Avalonia - A multi-platform .NET UI framework

Dear ImGui - Dear ImGui: Bloat-free Graphical User interface for C++ with minimal dependencies

Qt - Powerful, flexible and easy to use, Qt will help you not only meet your tight deadline, but also reduce the maintainable code by an astonishing percentage.

GTK - GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces.

wxWidgets - wxWidgets: Cross-Platform GUI Library