SkiaSharp
SkiaSharp is a cross-platform 2D graphics API for .NET platforms based on Google's Skia Graphics Library. It provides a comprehensive 2D API that can be used across mobile, server and desktop models to render images.
The Lens
SkiaSharp gives .NET developers access to Skia, the same 2D rendering engine that powers Chrome, Android, and Flutter. Cross-platform from day one across Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and WASM. Free and MIT-licensed.
This is the answer for .NET apps that need to draw beyond what System.Drawing or WPF provides (System.Drawing is being deprecated cross-platform anyway). PDFs, charts, image manipulation, custom controls in MAUI or Avalonia. The API is procedural and predictable. Not particularly hand-holding, but the docs are decent.
This is a primitive, not a product. There's no paid tier. You ship it inside your app via NuGet. Solo, small team, large team: same setup, just `dotnet add package SkiaSharp`. Performance is good because the heavy lifting is native code under the hood.
The catch is that the cross-platform native binaries can be a deployment headache. AOT compilation, mobile linking, and self-contained publishing all need attention. Test your release builds on every target platform you care about, not just the one your dev machine runs.
Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid
fully freeFree: MIT license, distributed via NuGet, all platforms supported. No commercial tier.
Self-hosted reality: It's a library, not a service. You add it to your project and ship it in your app's binaries. Native dependencies make CI builds and deployment slightly more complex than a pure-managed library.
No paid tier: Microsoft and the .NET Foundation maintain it as part of the open source .NET ecosystem.
Free library. Costs are deployment complexity, not licensing.
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License: MIT License
Use freely, including commercial. Just keep the license.
Commercial use: ✓ Yes
About
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- Mono Project (Organization)
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