Xamarin For Android The Conclusion: (Part 4 of 4)

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four

Well verdict is in boys, and girls. Personally, I thought the platform needs to mature more. For those people who can pay for the business edition ($1000 USD/developer), and really prefer c#; then go for it. For most of us that can either do c# or Java; you may want to stick with Java.

C# vs. Java for Android

Essentially Xamarin is a competing product with using Java. I felt that the hefty price tag, and the lack of free support means the ROI for Xamarin will be low.

If Xamarin provided more in the way of automation tools, and documentation; it would be the clear winner

The fact is going straight to Java for most people is probably a must. Even if you are more comfortable with c#, finding help on the internet is much easier. As the platform matures, and more features are added hopefully things will change.

License cost deterrent

One of my biggest gripes with Xamarin is the very inflexible license schemes. You can get by with the $300 indie edition, but it is pretty clear they want people to go the $1000 business edition route.

The biggest deterrent to the Xamarin platform is the high cost of licensing.

With no sliding scale prices based on organization size, or project scope Xamarin is a tough sell (especially for open source projects).

Student Discount

Xamarin, does provide a student discount. They give 90% off for enterprise edition, and for those of you whom go to school this is almost a must buy. You could probably make it back with this simple formula.

Flappy bird-like animal + Mario pipes + admob = $$$

Verdict

Personally I like Xamarin platform. The ability to re-use code for multiple mobile platforms can be helpful. For most of us tinkerers out there Android Studio is probably enough. For serious businesses, with a major focus on c#; Xamarin is probably the prefered method of development.

Room for improvement

Before I can fully back Xamarin I'd like to see better componants that provide more mobile platform abstraction, increased automation tools (visual studio macros could help here), and better documentation. From the activity of there web pages, I suspect all of these things are coming.