Interview: How SciChart Avalonia XPF Is Transforming Cross-Platform UI

What if your existing WPF app could run natively on Windows, Linux, and macOS—with full compatibility and no code changes?

For years, WPF developers were locked into Windows. Sure, .NET has supported Linux and macOS for some time—but WPF was the exception. Going cross-platform meant rewriting your UI from scratch, often sacrificing performance, interactivity, or both.

Now, that trade-off is gone. Avalonia XPF brings full WPF compatibility to Linux and macOS, while SciChart delivers ultra-fast real-time charting that performs seamlessly across platforms. Developers working in finance, medical research, industrial control, and scientific research can now build modern, scalable apps without ever leaving the WPF/XAML ecosystem.

We sat down with Mike James (CEO, Avalonia UI) and Andrew Burnett-Thompson (CEO, SciChart) to talk about how SciChart Avalonia XPF came together, why it matters, and what’s next for performance-driven .NET applications.

	Mike James: CEO at Avalonia UI since July 2021, Mike James formerly worked as a senior developer advocate at Microsoft and a developer evangelist at Xamarin.
	Andrew Burnett-Thompson: CEO at SciChart since October 2014, Andrew Burnett-Thompson formerly worked at BP as a front office oil delivery software consultant and at Barclays Capital as a front office equity derivatives software consultant.

Andrew, SciChart has been a major player in WPF for years. What made you expand to Avalonia XPF?

Andrew: The expansion to include Avalonia XPF started because developers kept asking us for Linux-based real-time charts support. We’ve been pushing the limits of real-time visualization in .NET for years, handling massive datasets with GPU acceleration.

But WPF developers who wanted to go cross-platform were stuck. They’d tell us, “I need to run my app on Linux and macOS, but I can’t afford to lose SciChart’s speed.”

Then Avalonia XPF came along, and I was blown away. It’s what .NET developers had been waiting for—a modern UI framework with native performance, XAML support, and full Linux/macOS compatibility. We knew right away that SciChart had to be part of this ecosystem, so we built SciChart Avalonia XPF to bring our ultra-fast charting to developers.

Mike, Avalonia XPF has been growing fast. Why is high-performance charting important for your ecosystem?

Mike: High-performance charting is indispensable for our ecosystem because Avalonia XPF is laser-focused on enabling developers to build sophisticated, data-heavy applications across multiple platforms.

In industries like finance and medical imaging, it’s vital to process huge volumes of data in real time, and charting is the heart of that story.

If you can’t rapidly visualize the data, you lose the interactivity and responsiveness that set modern desktop apps apart. SciChart’s technology solves this problem beautifully, ensuring our users have the incredible performance they need, regardless of the platform they need to support.

Andrew, let’s talk performance. What makes SciChart Avalonia XPF so fast?

Andrew: I think the fast data rendering comes down to our award-winning GPU-accelerated rendering engine. Most charting libraries rely purely on WPF’s built-in rendering, which is slow. Instead, SciChart takes a fully GPU-accelerated approach, which allows us to handle billions of data points in real-time while maintaining smooth interactivity.

This works in a number of ways. For starters, the CPU intelligently preprocesses and filters the data before it’s even rendered. The GPU then handles the ultra-fast rendering using DirectX or OpenGL, so we’re leveraging the full power of the computer’s graphics card, which contains most of the processing power.

We also use advanced data resampling techniques so even if you have billions of data points, only the relevant ones are drawn, which keeps frame rates high and latency low.

To give you context in real-world numbers, this means we can render 10 million data points in under 100 milliseconds. It means smooth zooming, panning, and interactivity, even in massive datasets. And all this works across Windows, Linux, and macOS without any performance loss.

Mike, how does Avalonia’s architecture help maximize performance?

Mike: Our architecture maximizes performance by sticking to native, hardware-accelerated rendering rather than using browser tech or layers of heavy abstractions.

We harness the GPU directly, which makes for fluid animations and instantaneous responses, even when you’re zooming and panning through huge data sets. We also carefully design our controls and rendering pipeline, so the framework doesn’t introduce needless overhead.

Given we support incredibly low-powered embedded devices, a huge part of our focus has been on ensuring that Avalonia apps perform incredibly well on the lowest-powered devices.

What does this mean for developers who are used to WPF but want to go cross-platform?

Andrew: It means .Net developers finally have a way to build cross-platform data visualizations without giving up the WPF and XAML framework they’re used to. SciChart Avalonia XPF is identical in API to our WPF charts version, but now developers can deploy their applications on Linux and macOS without rewriting everything.

Mike: For WPF developers, this collaboration with SciChart means there’s finally a straightforward path to take their high-performance applications beyond Windows. WPF has long been the gold standard for Windows desktop apps, but it was firmly tethered to Windows.

Avalonia XPF changes that entirely, letting WPF apps run on macOS and Linux with little to no changes. Factor in SciChart’s real-time rendering, and you’re getting the same lightning-fast performance you’d expect on Windows, now accessible across multiple operating systems.

How do you see Avalonia and SciChart Avalonia XPF evolving in the next few years?

Mike: Our roadmap is designed with the next decade in mind, so we’re constantly refining our framework to ensure it remains stable and high-performing for anyone building mission-critical applications.

Stability and performance aren’t just nice-to-haves—they’re the foundation of Avalonia XPF, and we’ve built our entire approach around these two pillars.

Whether it’s tighter tooling integration, expanded platform support, or enhancements to our rendering engine, every item on our roadmap is chosen to give .NET developers a faster, more reliable way to bring their ideas to life.

Andrew: For us, the future is about scaling up real-time visualization. We’re looking at WebAssembly-powered visualization, AI-driven analytics, and even more powerful GPU rendering by leveraging emerging technologies such as Vulkan and DirectX12. We want to make sure developers can handle any data volume, any complexity, on any platform—without ever worrying about performance.

Final Thoughts: The Future of .NET Development

For years, .NET developers have had to choose between performance and cross-platform capabilities. With Avalonia and SciChart Avalonia XPF, that trade-off is gone.

Now, you can build high-performance, real-time data applications that run anywhere—without leaving the .NET ecosystem.

What challenges do you see in UI and real-time visualization? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

Discover SciChart Avalonia XPF for yourself and see the difference it makes for your development team and the data visualizations they’re able to build with ease. We offer a free trial with no credit card required.

Discover SciChart Avalonia XPF