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Currently I explore the Visual Studio 2015 RC and realized that Xamarin Studio is integrated into Visual Studio and its installer. My Question is: Is Xamarin from now on free in Visual Studio?

Guilherme Fidelis
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Dennis Kassel
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11 Answers11

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Updated March 31st, 2016:

We have announced that Visual Studio now includes Xamarin at no extra cost, including Community Edition, which is free for individual developers, open source projects, academic research, education, and small professional teams. There is no size restriction on the Community Edition and offers the same features as the Pro & Enterprise editions. Read more about the update here: https://blog.xamarin.com/xamarin-for-all/

Be sure to browse the store on how to download and get started: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/pricing/ and there is a nice FAQ section: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/support/

Timo Salomäki
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JamesMontemagno
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    Why would you want to discourage people from using Xamarin.Forms? And why is Visual Studio support available in the free version but [not the paid Indie version](https://store.xamarin.com/)? – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jul 14 '15 at 06:16
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    Even though Xamarin looks promising, My personal thinking is, starter edition is restrictive and feels like demo version. This makes developer to refrain from using Xamarin for production application to avoid considerable investment for Xamarin subscription during initial periods and then every year. A considerable lower price slab or more flexible starter edition will be practical. – Tejasvi Hegde Jul 22 '15 at 08:50
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    I want to +1 and -1 this post at the same time. It's kind of misleading. – jerone Jul 23 '15 at 12:47
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    I need to pay 83 dolars per month to get usable product? I'm not company 83 dolars per month for me as a person is ridiculus. What's the point of Xamarin. I don't see any future in that project. I would pay maybe around 20$ if it would have Visual studio support and not have some funny app size limit! – Vlado Pandžić Aug 09 '15 at 22:14
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    prices are way to expensive for indi developer – nishantcop Sep 06 '15 at 13:23
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    Misleading. "This does not include Xamarin.Forms though, which is only available in the trial or any paid subscription. " According to your website, NOT THE INDIE SUBSCRIPTION. If you're going to bundle Xamarin.Forms with VS COMMUNITY, it needs to at least be included in the INDIE subscription. – redtetrahedron Oct 07 '15 at 04:41
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    @redtetrahedron It is included in ALL paid subscriptions and trials of Xamarin: See: https://store.xamarin.com/ It is right there. Xamarin.Forms is a library on top of Xamarin that is distributed via NuGet. Take a look on store page and you will see. – JamesMontemagno Oct 07 '15 at 04:46
  • @nishantcop The Indie Edition of Xamarin starts at $25 a month per platform. If you are looking to get started Xamarin Studio is a pretty great IDE to get started with especially if you are doing iOS or Android development on the Mac. – JamesMontemagno Oct 07 '15 at 04:48
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    Actually I was not clear - I was referring to the VS integration which is not included in indie. In other words, why include Xamarin with VS Community, which is a free version presumably targeted at the indie community, if you can't use it without a business level license? – redtetrahedron Oct 18 '15 at 20:21
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    I created a basic Xamarin Forms project in VS Community, and tried to compile it with no more code and I get this error: User code size, 2945919 bytes, is larger than 131072 and requires aáBusinessá(or higher) License. – redtetrahedron Oct 18 '15 at 20:33
  • As noted you can't use Xamarin.Forms with the starter edition. Double click that error message and start a full 30 day trial. – JamesMontemagno Oct 18 '15 at 22:06
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    I've really wanted to try Xamarin for years, but the price tag has always been way too much of an investment and the starter edition's restrictions are just absurd. – Saeb Amini Nov 19 '15 at 07:22
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    The cost for the indie package should be free. A person just learning or starting a company is not going to pay the 25 per month and is just going to use cordova instead. Once they have a real business they would obviously need to go to one of the paid models. Xamarin is completely blowing it here. – Sealer_05 Nov 30 '15 at 16:11
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    It's a great shame that Xamarin Forms cannot be used in Starter Edition. How about an option where it could be used, but not to actually publish? I mean, when you are ready to publish, then you have to pay the annual fee per platform. So, $300 at the END of your development, instead of $25 / month. Would allow hobbyists to decide if they were serious, while working in a fully cross-platform style. I was hoping to promote Xamarin cross-platform forms, but may have to build tools on Unity instead, due to this restriction. Xamarin could disable per-platform custom renderers until fee is paid. – ToolmakerSteve Dec 04 '15 at 09:31
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    Another idea, given Microsoft's desperate need to have Windows mobile succeed, I bet they could be convinced to subsidize development of Windows 10 Universal apps, on VS Community + Xamarin. I think most developers could justify $100 to lift the Starter app size limit, and to work with cross-platform Forms, even if that $100 only paid for deployment on Windows 10 Universal. This would be a cheap way to develop a substantial app all the way through, even if not on the money-making platforms. Then charge $300 per for iOS and Android, to customize and deploy. – ToolmakerSteve Dec 04 '15 at 09:44
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    It seems strange to have multiple restrictions on the product. The overall app size limitation is likely enough to motivate licensing. Why hobble your product further in a way that will just cause people to not use it? A 30 day trial isn't enough and people have no way to justify the cost with a commitment. – Alexander Trauzzi Dec 24 '15 at 03:24
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    I really hope Microsoft will significantly reduce Xamarin price (since they have acquired Xamarin), otherwise it's far too expensive... :( – Prokurors Mar 04 '16 at 12:16
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    The limitation is too annoying even to run their samples. Everyone here have great thoughts about the bad marketing approach of Xamarin staff (Jo Ann Buckner) which seems to be responsible for creating those types of demotivating restrictions. As others told here, Xamarin is too expensive. I think Marketing intends to keep the company away from small buyers and indies. Maybe it's time to move to another affordable solution. Cordova, Phonegap, B4X, Kurogo? – Junior Mayhé Mar 26 '16 at 21:46
  • The whole idea of Microsoft going open source for .NET is void when you have to pay in order to develop mobile apps in Xamarin. I ended up just downloading Android Studio. – Carlos Casalicchio Mar 30 '16 at 14:38
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    As of today, Xamarin is completely free. Rejoice, ye indie devs. https://blog.xamarin.com/xamarin-for-all/ – Isaac Lyman Mar 31 '16 at 19:37
  • James, you'll want to update your answer with all the scoop since it's pinned. (The previous edit was left in the form of a comment...) – BoltClock Apr 01 '16 at 06:00
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    I have updated with all the latest news :) Been a busy day! – JamesMontemagno Apr 01 '16 at 06:08
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    I talked to the Xamarin sales department, and if you bought your license 60 days ago og less, you will be able to get FULL refund or use your Xamarin money to make even greater stuff with the Xamarin Platform. – Rasmus Christensen Apr 01 '16 at 08:28
  • @caiohamamura, there are no restrictions at all and for students Xamarin was free for a long time. – JamesMontemagno May 28 '16 at 17:22
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Yes, Xamarin is now free in Visual Studio

Giorgi
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  • @AaronStainback whose answer changed? do you mean the original poster changed which answer they accepted? and why did you post that comment here? this answer is not accepted and wasn't edited. And why are you saying it changed today when an answer, the accepted answer said the same thing months before you wrote that comment – barlop May 27 '16 at 09:38
  • @barlop, Microsoft announced on March 31st 2016 that Xamarin would start being free. When I posted this comment, the accepted answer still said basically no Xamarin was not free because when the answer was accepted that was true. Giorgi here was the first to post correctly about Xamarin being free. – Aaron Stainback May 28 '16 at 16:03
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I asked the same question to Xamarin support team, they replied with following:

You can develop an app with Xamarin for commercial usage - there is no extra charge! We only require you to comply with Visual Studio's licensing terms,

which means that in companies of less than 250 employees with less than $1million USD annual revenue, you may use Visual Studio completely free (including Xamarin) for up to 5 developers.

However after you pass those barriers, you would need a Visual Studio license (which includes Xamarin).

Refer the screenshot below.

enter image description here

Aravin
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Visual Studio 2015 does include Xamarin Starter edition https://xamarin.com/starter

Xamarin Starter is free and allows developers to build and publish simple apps with the following limitations:

  • Contain no more than 128k of compiled user code (IL)
  • Do NOT call out to native third party libraries (i.e., developers may not P/Invoke into C/C++/Objective-C/Java)
  • Built using Xamarin.iOS / Xamarin.Android (NOT Xamarin.Forms)

Xamarin Starter installs automatically with Visual Studio 2015, and works with VS 2012, 2013, and 2015 (including Community Editions). When your app outgrows Starter, you will be offered the opportunity to upgrade to a paid subscription, which you can learn more about here: https://store.xamarin.com/

Moon
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Seems like now it's free for small teams and students, according to Scott Hanselman post https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/715568774418595840

https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/pricing/

Visual Studio Community
FREE

A free, full-featured and extensible IDE for Windows users to create Android and iOS apps with Xamarin, as well as Windows apps, web apps, and cloud services.

  • Students
  • OSS development
  • Small teams

and

Xamarin Studio Community FREE

A free, full-featured IDE for Mac users to create Android and iOS apps using Xamarin.

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Community
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Artiom
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  • is there a way to have xamarin free on visual studio 2015 enterprise edition? ( i have vs 2015 enterprise ) – SHM Jul 11 '16 at 09:19
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If you go to the visualstudio.com Visual Studio 2015 RC cross-platform and mobile apps page, then read and scroll to the bottom, it appears that Microsoft is including Xamarin, and upon installing it you do have, as James said, the Xamarin Starter edition. In 2015 RC go to Tools, Xamarin Account to see your Xamarin license. I do not know the limitations, or any expiration date, of this Starter Xamarin Account.

Still, I don't know about you, but the Visual Studio 2015 RC "Community" edition I installed expires in less than 180 days. (Check the Help menu, go to "About...", and click on your license status to check.)

Let's say Xamarin Starter edition is free, but Visual Studio 2015 "Community" has an expiration date. So the bigger question might be whether Visual Studio 2015 "Community" will be free.

Without Xamarin though, Microsoft is offering C++ tools for cross-platform development, but scroll down to the bottom of the page and you might be surprised or confused at the download link description.

codeReview
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    Visual Studio 2015 Community edition will replace the earlier Visual Studio Express editions and will be free. The only reason for the expiration date is that it is a prerelease version. – Jonas Jul 09 '15 at 22:33
  • The last time I read about the 2015 Community edition release, I read "July" somewhere (don't remember where though)...and Microsoft has extended my license anyway. – codeReview Jul 12 '15 at 05:54
  • I programmed for several years in C++ many years ago ... and hated it. I was greatly relieved when C# came along. I found it much more productive. Interesting that Microsoft is promoting a C++ cross-platform free download. However, cross-platform C++ really means Windows and Android. Impossible to tell from that link that the mention of iOS is NOT referring to C++, but rather to Xamarin! These days, not on ios nor osx means not usefully cross-platform. – ToolmakerSteve Dec 04 '15 at 09:13
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Visual studio community edition is bundled with xamarin and which is free as well.

VK Mallaya
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No, it only contains a free 30 day trial. But I think there would be a package if you buy Visual Studio + Xamarin.

bugs2919
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Xamarin is now owned by Microsoft So it completely free to use on Windows and mac as well.

Mannu
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Yes, Microsoft announced that xamrin is now free with VS15 and other latest versions.

Muhammad Ayyaz
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Visual Studio is now including Xamarin also. You can download Xamarin Studio but this link Make sure to get the Community Edition. it's Free to use

Maneth Pathirana
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