head to head · open source
Avalonia vs emacs-application-framework
Avalonia has 31,756 GitHub stars, 2,879 forks, 1,875 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. emacs-application-framework has 3,497 stars, 247 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Avalonia leads on adoption by 808% (31,756 vs 3,497 stars). Avalonia is written in C# under MIT; emacs-application-framework is written in Python under GPL-3.0. Avalonia has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, emacs-application-framework 7%. Avalonia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Avalonia | emacs-application-framework | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C# | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-08-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 247 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Avalonia if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick emacs-application-framework if
- You want the emacs-application-framework feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and emacs-application-framework fits your workflow better
About Avalonia
📖 About Avalonia is a cross platform UI framework for dotnet, providing a flexible styling system and supporting a wide range of platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and WebAssembly. Avalonia is mature and production ready and is used by companies, including Schneider Electric, Unity, JetBrains and GitHub. Considered by many to be the spiritual successor to WPF, Avalonia UI provides a familiar, modern development experience for XAML developers creating cross platform applications. While Avalonia UI is similar to WPF, it isn't a 1:1 copy, and you'll find plenty of improvements. For those seeking…
read the full Avalonia overview →
About emacs-application-framework
English 简体中文 A free/libre and open source extensible framework that revolutionizes the graphical capabilities of Emacs. The key to ultimately Live in Emacs Vision Emacs, the extensible text editor , is more than 45 years old. It is older than virtually all operating systems people use today, almost as old as the first UNIX system. During the decades of development, the world's brightest hackers have contributed their intelligence and creativity. Together they've constructed the most comprehensive and richest ecosystem that you can find in any software to date. If you are a hacker who works with numerous…
read the full emacs-application-framework overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Avalonia or emacs-application-framework more popular?
Avalonia has 31,756 GitHub stars and emacs-application-framework has 3,497. Avalonia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Avalonia and emacs-application-framework free?
Both are open source. Avalonia is licensed under MIT and emacs-application-framework under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Avalonia and emacs-application-framework?
Avalonia is written in C# and emacs-application-framework in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Avalonia or emacs-application-framework?
Choose Avalonia if you want the larger community (31,756 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose emacs-application-framework if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.