24-06-2025
Avalonia Accelerate Backed by €3 Million Deal from Devolutions
Avalonia UI has secured a €3 million sponsorship deal with Devolutions, the provider of Remote Desktop Manager, to boost the development of the Avalonia Accelerate suite over the next three years. This partnership aims to accelerate improvements in documentation, tooling, and core functionality, benefiting the entire Avalonia community.
The alliance between Devolutions and Avalonia arrives as the latter seeks new means to sustain its open‑source framework while delivering advanced capabilities to professional developers. Introduced in April 2025, Avalonia Accelerate's Phase 1 features—such as a 3D DevTools viewer, native WebView integration, and a multimedia control—are key components of the strategic roadmap supported by this sponsorship.
Avalonia's leadership emphasises that Devolutions' funding will be directed into three core areas: speeding up development cycles, enriching developer documentation, and expanding tooling infrastructure. The approach aligns with Avalonia's business model of maintaining an open‑source core while offering optional commercial add‑ons like Accelerate and Enterprise Support that underpin long‑term sustainability.
Avalonia CEO Mike James, speaking in a recent interview, said this sponsorship 'secures a reliable funding bridge to enable our engineering teams to expand Accelerate capabilities without compromising the open‑source core.' The partnership, he added, aims to 'deliver rapid, measurable improvements in tooling and documentation that benefit all users.' Independent observers note that this steady funding contrasts with Avalonia's earlier funding model, which relied heavily on enterprise support contracts, commercial licences for Avalonia XPF, and occasional donations.
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Previously, Avalonia faced financial strain despite a rise in usage and community engagement. By late 2024, enterprise support and custom development revenue represented over 30 percent of income, but lower‑tier indie support schemes accounted for less than 1 percent, prompting the project to adjust its revenue mix. The shift to optional commercial features under Accelerate—such as an improved XAML designer and hot‑reload—was designed to provide professional developers value while preserving free access to the core UI framework.
Under the agreement, Devolutions will help fund Accelerate Phase 2 and Phase 3, expected to introduce enhancements like advanced XAML tooling, performance optimisation, and improved cross‑platform support. While specific feature sets remain under development, early roadmap insights hint at capabilities aimed at mobile developers, teams focused on desktop engineering, and web‑embedded scenarios—adding value across sectors.
Technologists within the open‑source community note that the Avalonia Accelerate deal demonstrates a viable model for sustaining open‑source frameworks through commercial backing. 'Rather than fragmenting the ecosystem, this is injecting stability,' said one contributor. Long‑time Avalonia developer Nikita Tsukanov remarked, 'With three years of funding, we can plan multi‑phase improvements and dedicate resources to documentation and tooling—areas that were historically underresourced.'
Critics of optional‑paid open‑source models warn of risks, citing examples where commercial forks led to fragmentation or slowed community contributions. However, Avalonia's governance ensures that all core features remain MIT‑licensed, and that Accelerate components are independently maintained as non‑open‑source additions. CEO Mike James emphasises that the sponsorship does not alter the free nature of Avalonia; paid tools are entirely optional and are intended to supplement, not supplant, the open‑source foundation.
Devolutions, an enterprise software vendor known for Remote Desktop Manager, selected Avalonia due to its role as a core technology in their cross‑platform strategy. Since adopting Avalonia for their UI lifecycles, Devolutions has contributed to its stability and performance. Sponsoring Accelerate reflects a move to deepen that integration, providing a reliable path for feature development aligned with Devolutions' internal roadmap.
Avalonia remains one of the cross‑platform UI frameworks, used by organisations ranging from independent developers to firms like Unity, JetBrains, and Schneider Electric. The platform's high GitHub star count and vibrant community have been critical to its ascent, but sustaining complex tools—such as hot‑reload, advanced diagnostics, and rich multimedia—demands stable investment.
By channeling sponsorship funds into developer‑centric improvements, the deal seeks to achieve a dual objective: retain and grow community adoption while delivering enterprise‑grade tooling. It enables Avalonia to plan longer‑term enhancements—like XAML designers and AOT compilation—while continuing to ship solid open‑source updates to its MIT‑licensed core.
