[ Updated on June 30, 2025 ]
Part 3: The Workshop – Hardware Requirements and My Hardware
General Hardware Specifications:
Developing .NET and .NET MAUI applications doesn’t require the highest-end hardware, but having a system with sufficient resources will significantly improve your development experience. Here’s a breakdown of general hardware specifications for both Windows 11 and macOS, keeping in mind that more powerful hardware will always lead to a smoother, faster experience, especially when working with larger projects, complex UIs, additional services, or locally installed AI LMs.
These are Microsoft’s bare minimum requirements. I list them only for your information; but, I cannot really recommend them. For serious development, especially with .NET MAUI, use the “Microsoft’s Recommended Requirements,” listed in a separate section, below.
Microsoft’s Bare Minimum Requirements:
CPU and RAM Memory
- For Windows 11:
- CPU Intel: 6th generation Intel Core i5 or equivalent AMD processor (e.g., Ryzen 5)
- RAM 8GB: Acceptable for smaller projects but can become a bottleneck with larger solutions or multiple applications running simultaneously.)
- For macOS Sequoia :
- CPU Apple Silicon: M1 chip or later
- RAM 8GB: Acceptable for smaller projects but can become a bottleneck with larger solutions or multiple applications running simultaneously.)
Disk Storage:
- SSD (Solid State Drive): Crucial for fast build times and overall responsiveness.
- 256GB: Minimum for the OS, development tools (Visual Studio/VS Code, .NET SDK, MAUI SDK), and some project files.
- 512GB: Recommended if you plan to work on multiple projects, use virtual machines, or need more storage for assets and libraries.
Graphics Card:
- Integrated Graphics: Sufficient for most .NET and .NET MAUI development, including basic UI work.
- Dedicated Graphics Card: Beneficial for running emulators/simulators (especially Android) and more complex UI design and animations.
Display:
- 1920×1080 (Full HD): Minimum resolution for comfortable coding and UI design.
- Higher resolutions (e.g., 1440p, 4K): Ideal for larger projects and multi-window setups.
Operating System:
- Windows 11: Required for the latest .NET features and Visual Studio versions.
- macOS Sequoia: The latest stable version is recommended for the best compatibility and performance with Xcode and other macOS development tools.
Microsoft’s Recommended Requirements:
These specifications will provide a much smoother and more efficient development experience, especially when working on larger projects, complex UI, or using virtual machines.
CPU and RAM Memory:
- For Windows 11:
- CPU Intel: 10th generation Intel Core i7 or higher (e.g., 11th/12th gen)
- CPU AMD: Ryzen 7 or higher (e.g., Ryzen 7 5000 series)
- For macOS Sequoia:
- CPU Apple Silicon: M1 Pro or M1 Max chip, or higher
- RAM 16GB: Recommended for handling larger projects, running multiple applications concurrently, and using emulators/simulators.
- RAM 32GB: Ideal for very large solutions, complex UI development, and virtual machines.
Disk Storage:
- SSD (Solid State Drive): Crucial for fast build times and overall responsiveness.
- 512GB: Recommended if you plan to work on multiple projects, use virtual machines, or need more storage for assets and libraries.
- 1TB or larger: Ideal for demanding projects, extensive use of virtual machines, and storing large datasets or media assets.
Graphics Card:
- Windows 11:
- Dedicated Graphics Card (NVIDIA GeForce/AMD Radeon): With at least 4GB of VRAM for smoother performance with emulators, UI design tools, and potentially game development (if you’re venturing into that area).
- macOS:
- Apple Silicon: The integrated GPUs in M1 Pro/Max/Ultra chips are generally very capable for development tasks.
Display:
- 27-inch or larger display: Provides a more comfortable working environment, especially when dealing with complex UI layouts or multiple windows.
- Higher resolution (e.g., 1440p, 4K): Enables more screen real estate for code, UI designers, and other tools.
Other Hardware Requirements
- Networking: A stable and fast internet connection is crucial for downloading dependencies, accessing online resources, and collaborating with others.
- Peripherals: A comfortable keyboard and mouse are essential for long coding sessions.
- Backup Strategy: Implement a regular backup strategy to protect your work from data loss.
Specific .NET MAUI Considerations:
.NET MAUI allows you to build cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS. Therefore, you’ll need to factor in the requirements of each platform you plan to target:
- Android Emulators: Running Android emulators can be resource-intensive, so a powerful CPU and ample RAM are crucial. A dedicated graphics card can also improve emulator performance.
- iOS Development on macOS: You’ll need Xcode and macOS to build and deploy iOS applications, which has its own system requirements.
- macOS Catalyst: .NET MAUI’s macOS Catalyst target allows you to build native macOS apps from your MAUI codebase, so having a macOS machine is essential for this.
While the minimum requirements will allow you to develop .NET and .NET MAUI applications, investing in a system that meets or exceeds the recommended specifications will significantly improve your development experience, especially when working on larger projects or cross-platform applications. Consider the size and complexity of your projects, the platforms you plan to target, and your budget when choosing your hardware.
A properly configured Windows PC offers a robust and productive environment for .NET and .NET MAUI development. Its powerful IDEs, cross-platform capabilities, tooling ecosystem, debugging features, and community support make it an ideal “hub” for building modern applications targeting various platforms. While you may need to utilize macOS for specific iOS licensing and development tasks, the majority of your development workflow can be efficiently managed from a Windows PC. Here are the components it contains and how it serves as a central point for building cross-platform applications:
Primary Development Environment:
- Visual Studio: The premier IDE for .NET development, Visual Studio on Windows provides a rich, feature-packed environment for coding, debugging, testing, and deploying .NET and .NET MAUI applications. Its advanced features like IntelliSense, code refactoring, debugging tools, and integrated source control significantly enhance developer productivity.
- Visual Studio Code: A lightweight yet powerful code editor, VS Code is also a popular choice for .NET development, especially for cross-platform development. With the C# extension, VS Code offers many features similar to Visual Studio, making it a versatile option.
- .NET SDK: Windows is the primary platform for the .NET SDK, ensuring the latest features and updates are readily available. The .NET SDK includes the runtime, libraries, and tools necessary to build, run, and deploy .NET applications.
Cross-Platform Development Capabilities:
- .NET MAUI: .NET MAUI allows you to build native cross-platform applications targeting iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS from a single codebase. While some platform-specific aspects may require testing on their respective operating systems, the majority of the development and debugging can be done on a Windows PC.
- Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL): WSL allows you to run a full Linux distribution directly on Windows, enabling you to leverage Linux-specific tools and libraries within your development workflow. This is beneficial for scenarios where you need to interact with Linux-based services or environments.
- Android Emulation: Android emulators can run effectively on Windows PCs, allowing you to test and debug your .NET MAUI Android applications directly on your development machine. Visual Studio provides a built-in Android emulator for a seamless development experience.
- In the simplest case (and our case), macOS .NET MAUI development is achieved through a feature named, “Pair to Mac,” which is used to join the Windows PC development environment (specifically, Visual Studio 2022) to a macOS environment to in order to only build and sign iOS applications on a macOS. Therefore, you can develop the core logic, UI, services and handle version control on your Windows PC. But, remote access your macOS environment (locally or using the MacinCloud service) from your Windows PC to build, test, license and deploy .NET MAUI apps for Apple devices. (See “The Apple Mac” section below for a better explanation.
Tooling and Ecosystem:
- NuGet Package Manager: NuGet, the .NET package manager, is tightly integrated into Visual Studio, providing easy access to a vast library of pre-built components, libraries, and tools. This simplifies development by allowing you to reuse existing code and avoid reinventing the wheel.
- Microsoft Ecosystem: Windows PCs integrate seamlessly with the broader Microsoft ecosystem, including Azure cloud services, SQL Server, and other Microsoft technologies. This makes it easier to build and deploy .NET applications that leverage these services.
- Community Support and Resources: The .NET community is large and active, providing a wealth of documentation, tutorials, blog posts, and sample code. Windows, being the primary platform for .NET, has extensive community support available.
Collaboration and Version Control:
- Git Integration: Both Visual Studio and VS Code have excellent Git integration, allowing you to easily manage your codebase, collaborate with other developers, and track changes.
- GitHub and Azure DevOps: Windows is well-suited for integrating with popular source control platforms like GitHub and Azure DevOps, facilitating team collaboration and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflows.
Debugging and Testing:
- Advanced Debugging Tools: Visual Studio provides powerful debugging tools, including breakpoints, stepping, watch windows, and memory inspection, allowing you to identify and fix issues quickly.
- Unit Testing Frameworks: .NET has built-in support for unit testing frameworks like MSTest, xUnit, and NUnit, enabling you to write and run automated tests to ensure the quality of your code.
- UI Testing: Tools like Appium and WinAppDriver can be used for UI testing of .NET MAUI applications on Windows and other platforms, ensuring a consistent user experience across devices.
The Apple Mac Twist:
The use of a Mac computer and Xcode is a requirement (dictated by Apple) for building or signing iOS, iPadOS, and Mac Catalyst apps. As previously mentioned, we will join the Windows 11 Visual Studio 2022 development environment to the MacOS development tools, using the “Pair to Mac” feature found in Visual Studio 2022. So, what is Pair to Mac? Within Visual Studio and within a .NET MAUI project, it can be found on the main menu under “Tools->iOS->Pair to Mac.” Its purpose is to connect a Windows development machine to a Mac build machine over a network.
In general, Pair to Mac is a “remote build connection,” between a Windows environment and a macOS in order to use the Mac strictly for code compilation purposes. It requires a Windows development environment to be joined with a Mac development environment. Pair to Mac allows the developer, if desired, to do all the .NET MAUI development on the Windows computer, using the macOS computer, in the background, to automatically compile and license the code under the direction of the Pair to Mac logic.
The Pair to Mac process works by using SSH (behind the scenes) to send your code from Windows to the Mac, in order to employ Mac’s required Apple toolchain (Xcode) to compile it; and, then Pair to Mac streams the results back to your Windows Visual Studio 2022 IDE. The typical setup is to have two separate computers: one is a Windows PC, running Visual Studio, while the other is a Mac (like a Mac mini or MacBook) on the same network. The Pair to Mac feature works using SSH so there is a secure transaction between your Windows computer and your Mac computer, asking them to coordinate on the specific task of building an iOS app from your .NET MAUI project.
The Apple Toolchain and The Reason for Pairing:
The entire reason this complex setup exists is because of Apple’s licensing and technical requirements. To build, sign, and package an application for iOS, iPadOS, or macOS, you must use Apple’s proprietary toolchain, which only runs on macOS.
The toolchain consist of
- Xcode: The IDE itself isn’t used directly, but its command-line tools are essential.
- Apple SDKs: The APIs and frameworks for iOS and macOS.
- Compilers and Linkers: Tools like Clang to compile code and link it against the native frameworks.
- Code Signing Utilities: Tools (codesign) to apply the necessary developer certificates and provisioning profiles, which is a requirement for deploying to physical devices or the App Store.
- Simulators: The iOS and macOS simulators that are used for testing.
Mac Access Strategies:
What I have described in the “Pair to Mac” explanation above is the easiest way to join a macOS environment to an IDE for .NET MAUI development purposes. However, there are other ways to program or co-program for .NET and .NET MAUI on a Mac.
Since I am using the Pair to Mac technique, I will not spend much time on elaborating the alternatives (but I will in future posts as I move toward more programming on my Mac), except to say that Visual Studio once worked on macOS systems, but was fully deprecated now. Therefore, the ability to have Visual Studio on both side of the Apple-Microsoft divide is no longer an option. With that said, VS Code works very well on both a MAC and a Windows computer. And, almost all .NET and .NET MAUI programmers, who see the benefit of programming on a Mac, will install VS Code on both their Windows and MAC computers. The challenge is maintaining and synchronizing the additional extensions, software tools, and the repository.
Cloud-based Mac services (e.g., MacinCloud):
I do not use MacinCloud. So, I will not be discussing it, except to say that MacinCloud is a cloud-based service that provides access to macOS virtual machines in the cloud. It allows users to rent a Mac server or desktop environment remotely, eliminating the need to purchase and maintain physical Apple hardware. This is particularly useful for developers who need to build and test applications for macOS and iOS but don’t own a Mac, or who need additional, temporary computing resources.
MacinCloud is a service for developers who need access to macOS environments without the cost and complexity of owning and maintaining physical Apple hardware. It might be a convenient, scalable, and cost-effective way for you to develop and test applications for iOS and macOS.
A Note on Virtual Machines (VMs):
I am running my Windows 11 development computer as a VMware Workstation Pro VM on a Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X570 AORUS XTREME host computer. It has an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 32-Core Processor at 3400 Mhz., and 128 GB RAM. The Broadcom VMware Workstation Pro software for this arrangement is now free to end users. Because I am not currently running a VM on my Mac Mini M4, I can give no advice about the costs or benefits of such a configuration.
Personal Setup: My Hardware:
I use VMware VMs for development. My host computer is Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X570 AORUS XTREME. It has an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 32-Core Processor at 3400 Mhz., and 128 GB RAM. The total storage space is 43 TB across nine (9) drives. The host is running Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2. On that that host, I am running Broadcom’s VMware Workstation 17 Pro 17.6.3 build-24583834, which is a free application to the public.
Detailing my primary PC specifications:
Running within VMware Workstation Pro, I have a VM dedicated to programming. That is where I have installed Visual Studio and VS Code, and other .NET development tools. Here are the specs for that VM:
The VM is manufactured by VMware, Inc., it is Model VMware 20,1, using 8 Cores of the host’s AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 32-Core Processor at 3400 Mhz., and 24 GB RAM. My total VM storage space is 2.8 TB on two (2) NVMe drives.
Describing my Mac Setup:
Mac M4 Mini with Apple ARM M4 10-Core Processor at variable (6) 2900 to (4) 4400 Mhz., and 24GB of RAM. My total Mac storage space is 2.25 TB. The Mac M4 Mini uses an add-on expansion hub to extend the computer’s storage and communications capacity.
A Final Word on the Extra Apple Investment for .NET and .NET MAUI Development:
There is virtually no way around the need for both a Windows computer and a Mac computer when building cross-platform applications targeting both Windows and Apple computers. That is true of .NET, .NET MAUI, or the Uno Platform.
There are two (2) workarounds for avoiding a double-computer purchase:
1.) is to buy an Apple Mac Mini with enough speed and memory to comfortably run a Windows 11 VM on an Apple Silicon ARM computer. However, Broadcom’s VMware Workstation Pro is not compatible with macOS. Keep in mind that Workstation Pro is designed for Windows and Linux PCs, while VMware Fusion is specifically for macOS. Additionally, running Windows 11 on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1, M2, etc.) requires using both the ARM version of Windows 11 and VMware Fusion. Older, Intel-based Macs can run a standard (x64) Windows 11 VM, but the newer Apple Silicon Macs are limited to ARM versions. Therefore, you’ll need to download and install both VMware Fusion and the ARM version of Windows 11 as an ISO file. The purpose for having a Windows VM on a Mac is to create a system that can run both Windows 11 and macOS on one host, so that your cross-platform development can be done using one computer.
or, if owning a you own Mac is not appealing, then
2.) you can to subscribe to the Apple’s MacinCloud service and use an online Apple Mac, rather than locally owning your own Apple computer.
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