# FluentAvalonia: a WinUI inspired control set for Avalonia apps > FluentAvalonia is a C# control library that brings the Windows 11 look and a set of WinUI style controls to cross platform Avalonia applications, shipped as the FluentAvaloniaUI NuGet package. It is versioned in step with Avalonia releases, its 1.x line is deprecated, and the documentation is still being written. **amwx/FluentAvalonia** — Control library focused on fluent design and bringing more WinUI controls into Avalonia - Repository: https://github.com/amwx/FluentAvalonia - Stars: 1,616 · Forks: 171 - Language: C# - License: MIT - Published: 2026-10-16 · Updated: 2026-10-16 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/amwx-fluentavalonia ## What the library adds on top of Avalonia itself Avalonia gives you a cross platform UI stack and a set of built in controls. What it does not give you is the Windows 11 appearance, and it does not give you the full set of WinUI controls that a Windows developer expects to find. FluentAvalonia fills that gap. The repository description calls it a control library focused on fluent design and bringing more WinUI controls into Avalonia, and the README summarises it as a modern, fluent design and WinUI inspired toolkit for Avalonia apps. The audience is therefore quite specific. You are writing XAML for an Avalonia application, you want it to look like a modern Windows app on every platform Avalonia targets, and you would rather reference a control in a namespace than reimplement a segmented button or a settings panel yourself. The two projects it draws from are named in the README. Avalonia itself lives at the AvaloniaUI/Avalonia repository, and the WinUI reference implementation is microsoft-ui-xaml. Both are stated to be available under MIT licences, and FluentAvalonia is MIT as well, so the licence surface is unusually simple for a toolkit that visibly imitates another one. ## A version matrix that ties you to an Avalonia release The README publishes a small compatibility table, and it is the single most useful piece of documentation in the repository. It reads: (current) v2.3.0 with Avalonia 11.2.5, v2.1.0 with Avalonia 11.1.0, v2.0.5 with Avalonia 11.0.4, and all previous versions with Avalonia 11.0. Read as a contract, it says: each FluentAvalonia version is built against a specific Avalonia release, and the library moves forward when Avalonia moves. FluentAvalonia 2.3.0 pairs with Avalonia 11.2.5, 2.1.0 with Avalonia 11.1.0, 2.0.5 with Avalonia 11.0.4, and everything earlier lines up with Avalonia 11.0. That is a real constraint on planning. If your application is pinned to an older Avalonia release, you are pinned to an older FluentAvalonia, and if Avalonia releases a new minor version you have to wait for a matching library release. The mapping also tells you which line to start from: a new project on the current Avalonia should take FluentAvalonia 2.3.0. The repository itself shows the structure behind this. There is a FluentAvalonia.sln at the root, a Directory.Packages.props file for centralising package versions across the solution, a nuget.config, and separate src/ and tests/ directories, so the library and its tests live apart from the sample projects. ## Getting the FluentAvaloniaUI package and the sample gallery The README does not give a command line install step, so there is nothing to copy into a terminal here. The route it points at is the NuGet package page for FluentAvaloniaUI, and the README carries a NuGet badge for that package, which is also where the version tracking happens: the repository has no GitHub releases, so the package feed is the record of what has shipped. For a first look at the controls, the repository ships source rather than only a binary. The sample app is called FAControlsGallery and the README describes it as a demo of FluentAvalonia with more code samples. It exists as a set of project folders under samples/: FAControlsGallery.Desktop, FAControlsGallery.Web, FAControlsGallery.iOS, FAControlsGallery.Android, the shared FAControlsGallery project, and a second project named FASandbox. The documentation is a separate site at amwx.github.io/FluentAvaloniaDocs, and the README is honest that those pages are still under development. For a library whose whole purpose is visual, that is the weakest part of the offering: the reference material you would normally rely on to learn the control names and their properties is incomplete, so the sample app becomes the primary learning resource. ## The 1.x line for Avalonia 0.10 is deprecated The README opens with a note that has upgrade consequences: the 1.x version of FluentAvalonia, the one built for Avalonia 0.10.x, is now deprecated, and the guidance is to upgrade to Avalonia 11.0 with FluentAvalonia 2.0 for the latest and greatest. An upgrade here is not a package swap. It means moving from Avalonia 0.10 to Avalonia 11, and the compatibility table shows that the 2.x line is pinned to specific 11.x releases, so you are choosing a pair rather than tracking a moving target. The cost of that migration is on the application side, in your own XAML and in any third party libraries that also have to move. The 2.x line has since moved past its first release. The 2.0.5 entry corresponds to Avalonia 11.0.4 and the 2.1.0 entry to Avalonia 11.1.0, and the current version is 2.3.0 against Avalonia 11.2.5. Projects that took FluentAvalonia 2.0 when it was current are therefore already several releases behind the pairing the README recommends, which is a good reason to read the table rather than to stay on whatever version was current when you started. The repository is not archived, and the last push was on 2026-08-22. ## The control gallery is desktop first, and the author says so The first bullet under things to note in the README is about the sample gallery rather than the library. Because of the maintainer's limited time, the Android, iOS and browser versions of the control gallery will not be maintained, although in theory they should still work. That distinction matters more than it first appears. The library itself may still run on those platforms through Avalonia, but the gallery is where you inspect the controls, compare states and copy markup. Without a maintained gallery build for Android, iOS or the web, you lose the reference surface exactly on the platforms where you would most want to check that the fluent styling holds up on a small screen or a touch device. The desktop gallery remains the place to look, and the split project layout in samples/ reflects that, with a shared FAControlsGallery project and per platform heads. The FASandbox project is a second sample with a different name and, from the file listing alone, an unclear purpose. Nothing in the README describes what it is for, so anyone planning to use it as a starting point would be guessing. There is a Contribution Guidelines document at .github/CONTRIBUTING.md for people who want to help, which is worth reading before opening a pull request, particularly given the platform coverage gap. ## Windows 7 and 8.1 sit outside the support boundary The third item on the things to note list states that Windows 7 and 8/8.1 are not supported by FluentAvalonia. It adds that running on those versions may still be possible, but that no support for issues will be given. That is the kind of statement that saves an afternoon. A fluent design library pulls in assumptions about rendering, fonts and compositor behaviour, and a toolkit that does not support a platform should be understood as a hard boundary for issue reporting even when it happens to start. Taken with the platform list in the repository topics, which includes cross-platform, avalonia, dotnet, xaml and fluent, the intended envelope is clear. The library targets modern platforms through Avalonia, and the explicitly unsupported cases are the old Windows versions and, by omission, any platform where Avalonia itself does not run. For an engineer choosing a UI stack, the practical consequence is that this is a desktop first toolkit. If your target list includes legacy Windows builds in an enterprise deployment, that changes the decision before any control styling question is asked. ## MIT terms on both sides, and how this differs from WinUI itself The licence section in the README is the standard MIT text, with the usual grant to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense and sell, and the usual condition that the copyright notice travels with copies. The README also states plainly that WinUI and Avalonia are available under MIT licences, and it links both source repositories. The alternative worth comparing is WinUI itself, since that is what FluentAvalonia is modelled on. The difference in approach is not styling but platform reach. FluentAvalonia takes the WinUI shape and expresses it in Avalonia's XAML and rendering model, which is what lets one project target the platform range Avalonia covers, at the cost of the library only ever being an approximation of WinUI rather than WinUI itself. That approximation is the trade-off to keep in mind. Behaviour that depends on Windows internals will not come across, and the compatibility table shows the project is versioned against Avalonia releases rather than against WinUI releases, so the visual target can drift as Avalonia changes underneath it. ## Conclusion FluentAvalonia is the right fit if you are building an Avalonia desktop application and want Windows 11 styling plus the extra WinUI style controls without writing them yourself, and you are prepared to track the library's version against your Avalonia version. It is not the right fit if you are still on Avalonia 0.10, since the 1.x line is deprecated, or if you need a supported control gallery on Android, iOS or the browser, which the maintainer does not maintain. Verify three things first: that the FluentAvaloniaUI package version you take matches the Avalonia version in your project, that the MIT terms of both Avalonia and WinUI cover the controls you copy in, and that the FAControlsGallery sample still builds against your toolchain. ## FAQ ### What is FluentAvalonia and which Avalonia version does it target? FluentAvalonia is a WinUI inspired control library for Avalonia applications, published as the FluentAvaloniaUI NuGet package. The compatibility table in the README maps the current version 2.3.0 to Avalonia 11.2.5, 2.1.0 to Avalonia 11.1.0, 2.0.5 to Avalonia 11.0.4, and all previous versions to Avalonia 11.0. ### Can I still use FluentAvalonia 1.x with Avalonia 0.10? The README states that the 1.x version of FluentAvalonia, the one for Avalonia 0.10.x, is deprecated, and asks users to upgrade to Avalonia 11.0 with FluentAvalonia 2.0. The 1.x line therefore receives no new work. ### Does FluentAvalonia work on Windows 7 or on Android and iOS? Windows 7 and 8/8.1 are not supported by FluentAvalonia, and no support for issues will be given for them. The Android, iOS and browser versions of the FAControlsGallery control gallery are not maintained, although in theory they should still work. ## Sources - [amwx/FluentAvalonia on GitHub](https://github.com/amwx/FluentAvalonia) - [Issues](https://github.com/amwx/FluentAvalonia/issues) - [License: MIT](https://github.com/amwx/FluentAvalonia/blob/master/LICENSE) - [README](https://github.com/amwx/FluentAvalonia/blob/master/README.md) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/amwx-fluentavalonia