Extended WPF Toolkit: what the free Xceed control library actually gives you
All the controls missing in WPF. Over 1 million downloads.
At a glance
- What is it?
- A C# control collection for WPF applications, distributed on NuGet as Extended.Wpf.Toolkit and licensed for non-commercial use since v4.0.0. The free edition covers 40-plus controls; DataGrid, Charts and the Material Design set sit in the paid Plus edition.
- Who is it for?
- Adopt the free toolkit if you are building a non-commercial WPF application and need controls WPF does not ship, such as PropertyGrid, Wizard, DateTimePicker or the UpDown numeric editors. Do not adopt it if your project is commercial and you have not read license.md, because the free package is offered under the Xceed Community License for non-commercial use, and the license file sits at the repository root for exactly that reason.
- Can I use it commercially?
- Check first. The repository uses a licence we do not classify automatically, so read its LICENSE file before any commercial use.
- Is it still maintained?
- Yes. The repository last received commits 111 days ago.
- What is it written in?
- Mainly C#, according to GitHub's language statistics.
Answers come from the project's GitHub data, last synced on September 30, 2026, and from our analysis. They are not legal advice.
Editorial analysis
The gap Extended WPF Toolkit fills in a WPF project
WPF ships with a small set of built-in controls. Anything beyond that, a property editor, a wizard, a date and time picker, a range slider, a busy indicator, you either write yourself or take from a library. Extended WPF Toolkit is that library. The README describes it as "the number one collection of WPF controls, components and utilities" and lists more than forty controls in the free edition, from AutoSelectTextBox and BusyIndicator through PropertyGrid, Wizard, Zoombox and the Windows 8 theme.
The audience is narrow and specific: developers writing desktop Windows applications in C# who work in XAML and want a control rather than a weekend of template authoring. If you are building a web front end, a cross-platform UI, or a console tool, nothing here applies. The repository's primary language is C#, and every control is a WPF control, not a portable abstraction.
The download figure in the README, more than 1 million across Codeplex and NuGet, is a distribution fact the project states about itself. It says nothing about whether the controls are good, and the README does not present it as a quality argument either.
How the toolkit is organised and what the free edition leaves out
The README separates two tables, and the split matters more than any individual control. The first table is the free toolkit: AvalonDock, AutoSelectTextBox, BusyIndicator, Calculator, CalculatorUpDown, CheckComboBox, CheckListBox, ChildWindow, CollectionControl, ButtonSpinner, ByteUpDown, CollectionControlDialog, ColorCanvas, ColorPicker, DateTimePicker, DateTimeUpDown, DecimalUpDown, DoubleUpDown, DropDownButton, IconButton, IntegerUpDown, LongUpDown, Magnifier, MaskedTextBox, MessageBox, MultiLineTextEditor, PieChart, PrimitiveTypeCollectionEditor, PropertyGrid, RangeSlider, RichTextBox, RichTextBoxFormatBar, ShortUpDown, SingleUpDown, SplitButton, SwitchPanel, TimelinePanel, TimePicker, TimeSpanUpDown, ValueRangeTextBox, WatermarkPasswordBox, WatermarkTextBox, WatermarkComboBox, WindowContainer, WindowControl, Wizard, Zoombox and the Windows 8 theme.
The second table is the Plus Edition: Charts, ChildWindow Plus, ExtendedTabControl, DataGrid, FilePicker, 21 Material Design controls, MessageBox Plus, MultiCalendar, MultiColumnComboBox, PileFlowPanel, PropertyGrid Plus, RadialGauge, Rating, SlideShow, StyleableWindow, 12 new SwitchPanels and more. DataGrid is the one people most often assume is free, and the README places it in the Plus table. PieChart is free; Charts as a group is not. If your requirement list contains DataGrid, check the Plus wiki page before you plan around the free package.
The repository layout is a single solution directory, ExtendedWPFToolkitSolution, plus README.md, license.md and a _config.yml. There is no separate docs tree in the top-level listing; the per-control documentation lives in the wiki, which the README links for each control by name.
Getting the toolkit and putting a first control on a window
The README points at the NuGet package by its full name, Extended.Wpf.Toolkit, and links to its nuget.org page. The README does not print an install command, a package reference snippet, a namespace declaration or a XAML element, so there is nothing here to copy verbatim. What it does give is the package name and a wiki page per control.
Start from the package name as written: Extended.Wpf.Toolkit. Add it through whatever NuGet client your solution already uses, then open the wiki page the README links for the control you want, for example the IntegerUpDown page, the DateTimePicker page or the BusyIndicator page. Those pages carry the namespace and usage details; the README itself does not, and inventing them here would be worse than sending you to the source.
The release you land on depends on when you install. The README lists 5.1.0 as the most recent free release, dated 2026-06-11, with 5.0.0 before it on 2025-09-09 and 4.7.0 on 2025-03-10. The README does not state a minimum target framework for any of these, so check the package metadata on nuget.org rather than assuming compatibility with an older .NET Framework project.
One practical note on which build you get: the README says the Plus Edition runs "a version a few releases ahead". The release history backs that up, with a Plus Edition 5.1.0 service release dated 2026-03-16, roughly three months before the free 5.1.0. If you find documentation for a control behaviour that does not match the free package you installed, that lag is the first thing to check.
The licence is the constraint that decides most adoptions
Starting at v4.0.0, the README states, this free toolkit is provided under the Xceed Community License agreement, and links license.md at the repository root. The README's own gloss on that agreement is "for non-commercial use". That single sentence is the most consequential line in the whole document, and it is easy to skim past because it sits under a paragraph about downloads.
The repository's licence field is reported as NOASSERTION rather than a recognised SPDX identifier, which is consistent with a custom agreement rather than a standard open source licence. If you are evaluating this for a commercial product, read license.md itself and get your own legal read; nothing in the README substitutes for that, and the difference between the free and paid editions is a commercial arrangement, not a technical one.
The paid edition is Xceed Toolkit Plus for WPF, which the README describes as being for developers who want to support the project, get additional controls and features, get updates and professional support, and work with a version a few releases ahead. The release history supports that last claim: the README lists a Plus Edition 5.1.0 service release dated 2026-03-16, ahead of the free 5.1.0 on 2026-06-11. So the free edition lags the paid one by roughly a quarter on the same version number.
Maintenance cadence and what an upgrade costs you
The last push to the repository was on 2026-06-11, the same day free v5.1.0 was released. The release history in the README shows a steady but not rapid rhythm: 4.6.0 in January 2024, 4.6.1 in July 2024, 4.7.0 in March 2025, 5.0.0 in September 2025, then 5.1.0 in June 2026. That is roughly two free releases a year, with the Plus edition filling the gaps.
The stated scope of each release is modest. v5.1.0 is described as 12 bug fixes and improvements; v5.0.0 as 3; v4.7.0 as 19. These are maintenance releases, not feature drops, and the README links each to a wiki page listing the changes rather than summarising them inline. Budget for reading those pages before an upgrade, because a control library that changes behaviour in a property editor or a date picker can surface in places your tests do not cover.
The upgrade cost itself is the ordinary NuGet one: change the package reference, rebuild, and check the controls you actually use against the linked improvements page. The README does not document a migration path between major versions, and it does not document rollback. If you are moving from 4.x to 5.x, the release notes for 5.0.0 and 5.1.0 are the only published record of what changed, and they are three and twelve items respectively.
When to pick something else
The most direct alternative is the original WPF Toolkit that Microsoft published, which shares the name and part of the lineage. The practical difference is packaging and scope: this repository is the Xceed-maintained continuation, distributed as Extended.Wpf.Toolkit on NuGet, with its own release cadence and its own licence, while the Microsoft-era toolkit is not the thing you install from this project's package. If you search for "wpf toolkit" and land on documentation for controls that are not in this README's tables, you are looking at the older line.
A second alternative is the Plus Edition from the same vendor. That is not a competing approach so much as the same codebase with more controls and a support contract, which is why the honest comparison is commercial rather than technical.
A third option is to write the control yourself. For a single DateTimePicker this is usually a bad trade. For a PropertyGrid it is a bad trade by an order of magnitude, since the free edition already ships one and reflecting over arbitrary objects is not a small piece of work. Where writing your own wins is when you need one narrow control and want no third-party dependency, no licence question and no upgrade cycle at all. That is a real position, and the toolkit's own release history, two free releases a year with a dozen fixes each, is the cost you are accepting in exchange for not writing it.
Editorial conclusion
Adopt the free toolkit if you are building a non-commercial WPF application and need controls WPF does not ship, such as PropertyGrid, Wizard, DateTimePicker or the UpDown numeric editors. Do not adopt it if your project is commercial and you have not read license.md, because the free package is offered under the Xceed Community License for non-commercial use, and the license file sits at the repository root for exactly that reason. Do not adopt it if DataGrid, Charts or the Material Design controls are the reason you came: those are listed under the Plus Edition, not the free one. Verify first which of the controls you need appear in the free table rather than the Plus table, then read the release notes for 5.1.0 before upgrading.
Frequently asked questions
How do I install the Extended WPF Toolkit?
The README points to the NuGet package Extended.Wpf.Toolkit and links to its nuget.org page. The README does not print an install command, so use your existing NuGet client and then follow the wiki page for the control you want.
What is the Extended WPF Toolkit?
It is a collection of WPF controls, components and utilities maintained by Xceed, covering more than forty controls in the free edition, including PropertyGrid, Wizard, DateTimePicker, BusyIndicator and the UpDown numeric editors. The README describes it as the collection of controls missing in WPF.
Which NuGet package do I need for the Extended WPF Toolkit?
The README names it as Extended.Wpf.Toolkit and links to its nuget.org listing. That package is the free edition; the Plus Edition with DataGrid, Charts and the Material Design controls is a separate Xceed product.
What licence does the free Extended WPF Toolkit use?
Starting at v4.0.0 the README states the free toolkit is provided under the Xceed Community License agreement, linked as license.md at the repository root, for non-commercial use. The repository's licence field is reported as NOASSERTION rather than a standard SPDX identifier.
Is DataGrid included in the free Extended WPF Toolkit?
No. The README lists DataGrid in the table of additional controls and features in the Plus Edition, alongside Charts, FilePicker, MultiColumnComboBox and the Material Design controls. PieChart is in the free table; DataGrid is not.
Official sources
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