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supastarter VS Xamarin

Compare supastarter VS Xamarin and see what are their differences

supastarter logo supastarter

The boilerplate for your next web app built on top of Supabase and Next.js.

Xamarin logo Xamarin

Create iOS, Android and Mac apps in C#
  • supastarter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-17
  • Xamarin Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-17

supastarter features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Supastarter provides a streamlined setup process, making it easy for developers to quickly initialize and configure their projects without hassle.
  • Comprehensive Features
    Includes a wide variety of prebuilt features and integrations, allowing developers to implement extensive functionality without starting from scratch.
  • Customizability
    Offers a high level of customization, enabling developers to tailor their projects to meet specific requirements and preferences.
  • Community Support
    Backed by a strong community offering support, plugins, and extensions, providing valuable resources and collaborative opportunities.

Possible disadvantages of supastarter

  • Learning Curve
    While easy to use, new users may face an initial learning curve to fully understand and utilize all the features effectively.
  • Overhead
    The comprehensive nature of Supastarter might introduce additional overhead, which could be unnecessary for simpler projects.
  • Dependency Management
    Reliance on certain libraries or frameworks could lead to dependency management challenges, especially as projects grow in complexity.
  • Update Frequency
    Frequent updates could require developers to spend time on maintenance and compatibility checks, which can be time-consuming.

Xamarin features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Development
    Xamarin allows developers to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms (iOS, Android, and Windows), which can significantly reduce development time and effort.
  • Native Performance
    Apps built with Xamarin perform as well as native apps because they leverage platform-specific hardware acceleration and compile directly to native ARM assembly code.
  • Shared Codebase
    With Xamarin, developers can use a single codebase for different platforms, making it easier to maintain and update apps across multiple operating systems.
  • Large Ecosystem
    As part of the broader .NET ecosystem, Xamarin benefits from a large collection of libraries, tools, and developer resources provided by Microsoft.
  • Strong Community Support
    Xamarin has a strong developer community and comprehensive documentation, making it easier for developers to find support and resources.
  • Integration with Visual Studio
    Xamarin integrates seamlessly with Visual Studio, providing a robust development environment complete with debugging, profiling, and unit testing tools.

Possible disadvantages of Xamarin

  • App Size
    Xamarin apps tend to have larger file sizes compared to native apps because of the additional overhead of the Mono runtime.
  • Limited Third-Party Library Support
    While Xamarin supports a wide range of libraries, not all third-party libraries and SDKs are compatible, which might require custom bindings or workarounds.
  • Performance Overhead
    Some performance overhead might still exist compared to fully native applications, especially in complex and resource-intensive apps.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers coming from purely native development backgrounds might face a learning curve when adopting Xamarin, particularly in understanding the shared codebase approach and platform-specific nuances.
  • Platform Limitations
    Certain platform-specific features and UI elements might not be fully supported or might require additional custom code to implement.
  • Licensing Costs
    Although Xamarin itself is open source, enterprise-level features or more advanced tools might require a Visual Studio Enterprise subscription, which can be costly.

Analysis of Xamarin

Overall verdict

  • Xamarin is a good choice for developers who are entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem and are looking to create cross-platform mobile applications using a shared codebase. Its native performance, extensive library support, and community backing make it a viable option. However, it's crucial to consider the specific needs of your project, including performance requirements and platform-specific features.

Why this product is good

  • Xamarin is a popular open-source platform developed by Microsoft for building cross-platform mobile applications. It allows developers to use a single codebase written in C# to create native apps for Android, iOS, and Windows. Xamarin is known for its integration with the .NET ecosystem, enabling developers to leverage shared code, libraries, and tools across multiple platforms. It offers access to native APIs and performance optimizations, making it a solid choice for developers familiar with C# and the .NET framework.

Recommended for

  • Developers proficient in C# and .NET
  • Teams looking to build native apps with a single codebase
  • Projects where integration with Microsoft services is a priority
  • Enterprises with existing .NET infrastructure aiming to expand into mobile

supastarter videos

Supastarter - The Ultimate Tool For Indie Hackers

More videos:

  • Review - Building Email Marketing Startup - "SupaStarters" Podcast

Xamarin videos

Pros and Cons of Xamarin Development

More videos:

  • Review - Is Xamarin Forms Any Good?
  • Review - Why Xamarin Is Awesome

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to supastarter and Xamarin)
Developer Tools
47 47%
53% 53
Boilerplate
100 100%
0% 0
Development Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Nextjs
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare supastarter and Xamarin

supastarter Reviews

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Xamarin Reviews

Explore 9 Top Eclipse Alternatives for 2024
Xamarin.Forms An open-source UI framework that enables developers to conjure up applications for Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android, and Windows from a singular shared codebase. Offers rich features like XAML user-interface language, databinding, gestures, effects, styling.
Source: aircada.com
Top 10 Flutter Alternatives for Cross-Platform App Development
Developed and launched by Microsoft, Xamarin facilitates developers to build apps for iOS and Android by using C# and .NET. It ensures a seamless integration with Visual Studio and lets developers experience a fully familiar environment. The framework provides a single codebase and allows developers to perform app development rapidly.
Exploring 15 Powerful Flutter Alternatives
Xamarin is a Microsoft-created framework for building native iOS, Android, and Windows apps in C#/.NET. On the complexity front, Xamarin apps generally require more focus on memory management and garbage collection tuning relative to alternatives like Flutter. The additional diligence pays dividends in runtime performance when done properly. However, developers with...
THE BEST 34 APP DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE IN 2022 LIST
Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned tool to write native code for apps. Free. Cross-platform. Open-source. An app platform for building Android and iOS apps with .NET and C#.
9 Of The Best Android Studio Alternatives To Try Out
You can also access the required resources at the Xamarin Universal project. You can stay up to date with the latest updates by subscribing to their YouTube channel or blogs. The Xamarin community is most active, and you can get answers to your questions swiftly.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Xamarin should be more popular than supastarter. It has been mentiond 28 times since March 2021. 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.

supastarter mentions (12)

  • supastarter and Indie Hacking with Jonathan Wilke
    Want to skip to the Discount code for supastarter: CODINGCATDEV. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Thoughts on Paid Next.js Template/Boilerplate
    To build complex applications, https://supastarter.dev/?aff=zXRYe is currently the best I've used, based on a monorepo, with complete features and clear, robust code. However, the downside is that there are very few components for landing pages, which complements shipfast perfectly, But his price is also the most expensive.. There are also two other good ones: - https://anotherwrapper.com/?aff=zXRYe Build AI... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Thoughts on Paid Next.js Template/Boilerplate
    I bought https://shipfa.st/?via=top during Black Friday, but I'm not particularly satisfied with it because Marc focuses too much on marketing rather than continuously improving Shipfast, and there might not be new features for a month or two. This is more suitable for building landing pages rather than complex applications, as the rich components are basically designed for landing pages. In terms of landing pages... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • SaaS starter kit for Next.js 14
    Hey everyone, I am building a SaaS starter kit for Next.js 14 and would love to hear your feedback! It's a production-ready boilerplate and includes all the common features of a SaaS: πŸ” Authentication 🌏 i18n πŸ’Έ Billing πŸ“§ Mails πŸͺ„ AI integration 🧩 Customizable UI πŸ”—API ... And much more! You can learn more about all the features at https://supastarter.dev/products/starter-kits/nextjs. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Feedback wanted - Next.js 14 SaaS starter kit
    Hey everyone, I am building a SaaS starter kit for Next.js 14 and would love to hear your feedback! It's a production-ready boilerplate and includes all the common features of a SaaS: πŸ” Authentication 🌏 i18n πŸ’Έ Billing πŸ“§ Mails πŸͺ„ AI integration 🧩 Customizable UI πŸ”—API ...and much more! Source: over 1 year ago
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Xamarin mentions (28)

  • Wine Releases Framework Mono 6.14 in Taking over the Mono Project
    I haven't been following .NET lately, but AFAIK .NET works on Linux now and "Mono" is basically .NET for Linux... What even are the differences? Sounds like Microsoft just doesn't want to maintain 2 different versions so they're dumping it. Also, > Microsoft became the steward of the Mono Project when it acquired Xamarin in 2016 They probably never even wanted Mono, they just inherited it because they wanted... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • C# Fundamentals
    Mobile Applications: With Xamarin, a cross-platform mobile development framework, developers can write C# code to build native Android, iOS, and Windows mobile applications. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Making an android app with c#
    Xamarin - Basically an older version of MAUI. I would advise against creating new projects on Xamarin since MAUI is supposed to render it obsolete. Source: over 2 years ago
  • App developer
    Microsoft Xamarin: For this you'll need to know C# and .net. Source: over 2 years ago
  • I own a web development company in San Antonio and I'm looking for ideas to support the UTSA students with some sort of free courses or classes
    At my internship, we moved to Microsoft's Visual Studio for C# development from Java, and for application development we use Xamarin which can be used on Windows and Mac. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing supastarter and Xamarin, you can also consider the following products

ShipFa.st - The NextJS boilerplate with all the stuff you need to get your product in front of customers. From idea to production in 5 minutes.

Android Studio - Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA

NextBase - Built your SAAS quickly and skip the boring parts

OutSystems - Build Enterprise-Grade Apps Fast.

Shipped.club - Launch your product within hours. And make money. Save 60+ hours and $1000+.

Xcode - Xcode is Apple’s powerful integrated development environment for creating great apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Xcode 4 includes the Xcode IDE, instruments, iOS Simulator, and the latest Mac OS X and iOS SDKs.