C# Cross-Platform

1. Cross-Platform Applications in C#
2. the Mono Framework in C#
3. the .NET Core Framework in C#
4. Conclusion

This tutorial discusses the different methods to create a cross-platform application in C#.

Cross-Platform Applications in C#

Unlike Java, which is a programming language and a framework in itself, C# is just a language that needs a framework to be fully cross-platform.

Java is fully cross-platform because it runs on Java Virtual Machine and Java Runtime Environment, which are the same across all platforms and operating systems.

To make C# fully cross-platform, we must select a development framework that suits our needs.

In earlier days, if we wanted to create a cross-platform application in C#, we could only use the Mono framework. Mono is great for this, but it is still a third-party framework and not directly supported by Microsoft.

We can also create cross-platform applications with Microsoft’s .NET Core framework.

the Mono Framework in C#

Mono is a free, open-source, and cross-platform implementation of Microsoft’s .NET framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and Common Language Runtime CLR.

Mono is a software development framework in C# that allows developers to write cross-platform applications as part of the .NET foundation.

the .NET Core Framework in C#

.NET Core is an open-source, cross-platform, and general-purpose framework maintained by Microsoft. The .NET Core software development framework in C# allows developers to write cross-platform applications.

Conclusion

The highlighting features of the Mono framework are that it is cross-platform, open-source, and implements the .NET framework.

The highlights of the .NET Core framework are that it is cross-platform, consistent across different architectures, and provides some command-line tools.

Mono provides us much more features because it is an implementation of the full .NET framework, while the .NET Core only has a subset of features compared to it.

Microsoft maintains the .NET Core and has a bigger community, so it has fewer issues than Mono.

These frameworks have their advantages and disadvantages over each other. We must decide which framework suits our scenario the best.