A Comparison Matrix of MVVM Frameworks for Xamarin

I often see the question in forums "Which is the best MVVM Framework for Xamarin that I should use?" or "Should I use an MVVM Framework for Xamarin?".

To answer this question for myself (and others hopefully), I've done some research and compared the popular MVVM frameworks for Xamarin and elaborated what they have over the vanilla out the box Xamarin Forms (and Xamarin Native) offfering.

(Comparison below is based on stable versions, not pre-release)

Feature	MVVMCross	FreshMVVM	Prism.Forms	MVVMLight	Caliburn.Micro
Supports Xamarin Forms	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Supports Xamarin Native	✅	⛔	⛔	✅	⛔
Active Development	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Up to date Samples	✅	✅	✅	⛔	✅
.NET Foundation Member	✅	⛔	✅	⛔	⛔
.NET Standard Support	✅	✅	✅	✅	⛔
Up to date documentation	✅	✅	⛔	⛔	⛔
Built in IOC Container	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Fast IOC Container	✅	✅	⛔	✅	✅
View-to-ViewModel auto wiring	✅	✅	✅	⛔	✅
Navigation Service	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
ViewModel-to-ViewModel Navigation	✅	✅	⛔	⛔	✅
ViewModel Parameters	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
ViewModel Lifecycle	✅	✅	⛔	⛔	✅
Non-Invasive XAML	⛔	✅	✅	✅	✅
Event Aggregator	✅	⛔	✅	✅	✅
View Presenter Overriding	✅	⛔	⛔	⛔	⛔
Converter Helpers	✅	⛔	⛔	⛔	⛔
Plugin Support	✅	⛔	✅	⛔	⛔
Switch IOC Container	✅	⛔	✅	✅	✅

GitHub Stats

Links	MVVMCross	FreshMVVM	Prism.Forms	MVVMLight	Caliburn.Micro
GitHub	Link	Link	Link	Link	Link
GitHub master Last commit*	1 month ago	9 days ago	11 days ago	3 months ago	1 month ago
Contributors	275	15	83	4	34

Nuget Stats

Links	MVVMCross	FreshMVVM	Prism.Forms	MVVMLight	Caliburn.Micro
Nuget	Link	Link	Link	Link	Link
Nuget Last updated*	1 month ago	5 days ago	5 months ago	6 months ago	14 months ago
Downloads - last major version*	86,597	59,845	74,273	94,670	122,487
Downloads - total*	1,071,196	148,771	518,698	1,152,775	793,456
Downloads - average per day*	497	105	355	384	273

'* As of 21 March 2019

Summary

MVVMCross is the most feature complete and suitable for most sizable applications. It has a very large community support base from a contributions and troubleshooting point of view. The biggest drawback for me of MVVMCross as far as XAML goes, its that you need to use their MvxContentPage in your declarations.

The other drawback I've found with MVVMCross are the mysterious bugs that appear in Release Mode because you havne't included an up to date LinkerPleaseInclude.cs file which they provide in their sample applications.

Prism is suitable for large applications, but I find the documentation lacking. My pet peev is use of magic strings for Navigation to a page. The documentation lists most of the default containers as legacy, so only DryIOC is performant enough. There is however and undocumented Prism.SimpleInjector nuget package which should also offer good performance as far as IOC containers go.

The benefit that MVVMCross and MVVMLight have over the other "Xamarin Forms Only" frameworks is that you can have your Core ViewModels be rendered to Native and Forms platofrms (eg. Xamarin Forms for iOS and Xamarin Native for tvOS).

With the exception of FreshMVVM which is a Xamarin Forms first class citizen, you get the feeling that all the others supported Xamarin Forms as an afterthought because they were convceived before Xamarin Forms took off. MVVMCross seems to put more effort behind Xamarin Native but having use MVVMCross in a Xamarin Forms app, the support is very good too.

I think MVVMCross and Prism are great for enterprise applications because they guide you down a particular pattern. So its easy for a bunch of developers to follow the familiar pattern when working on multiple projects in an organisation that use MVVMCross or Prism consitently.

I think FreshMVVM is well thought out and easy to use, but what really puts me off completely is the prefix of everything with "Fresh"!

MVVMCross and MVVMLight have very high average downloads per day, but their history goes way back before Xamarin Forms became popular. So that would leave Prism as the highest downloads from a pure Xamarin Forms point of view.

MVVMLight and Caliburn.Micro only have one major contributor and suitable for light applications. Documenation is not that good or up to date.

Having used Caliburn.Micro in its hey dey with Windows Desktop and Windows Phone applications, it was quite revolutionary, with many people using it over MVVMLight because it had so many nifty features such as Auto Binding of Properties to visual elements if the element had the same name. That feature seems to have dropped off in the Xamarin version, probably for technical reasons. Caliburn.Micro's evolution seems to be the slowest which is sad given where its come from.

So which one should you use?

The cop out answer is "it depends", but it really does. If you have used MVVMCross, MVVMLight for Xamarin Native applications before (or Prism for native Windows applications) and are now using Xamarin Forms, it makes sense to continue to use what you're used to.

If you have no experience with any MVVM frameworks and you have a small app but want some of the nifty features of an MVVM framework, I would say FreshMVVM is a good choice.

But if you really wanted my opinion, considering all of the above and despite my bias toward MVVMCross, I would order them like this:

1. MVVMCross
2. Prism.Forms (use DryIOC or SimpleInjector IOC container)
3. FreshMVVM
4. MVVMLight
5. Caliburn Micro

Resources

Framework Comparisons

• Adam Pedley on Xamarin Help
• Devlin Duldulao on Prism

IOC Container Performance Comparisons

• Daniel Palme on GitHub
• Adam Pedley on Xamarin Help

Official Documentation

• MVVMCross
• FreshMVVM
• Prism
• MVVMLight
• Caliburn.Micro

Official Samples

• MVVMCross
  • Playground
  • Samples
• FreshMVVM
• Prism
• MVVMLight
• Caliburn.Micro