Xamarin vs. Mono vs. Monodevelop

Question

What is the relationship between Xamarin and Mono(Are they the same product)?

Is the Monodevelop IDE related to Mono?

Solution

Xamarin is primarily a platform for developing mobile applications (Android and iPhone) using C#.

The Mono project is an open-source port of the .NET framework. It is most commonly used to run .NET under Linux. From a performance standpoint, it runs about 50% (on average) as fast as the .NET framework.

MonoDevelop is an open-source C# IDE analagous to Eclipse or Visual Studio.

Miguel de Icaza was the primary developer for Mono and is one of the founders/owners of Xamarin.

• https://xamarin.com/
• http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
• http://monodevelop.com/

Comments

[Aaron Franke]

Why does stock MonoDevelop display news from Xamarin on the start page?

[Broots Waymb]

@AaronFranke - Xamarin is a primary developer for it. Xamarin Studio also just appears to be a rebranding of MonoDevelop (according to Wikipedia anyway...)

[theimowski]

You can also develop applications for Xamarin using F# - see github.com/fsprojects/Fabulous