Q1What got you started on NetWiv?
I’ve been building apps at work and at home for over a decade. I’ve passed through JavaScript, TypeScript, C#, C++, Python and Java along the way, but the two I keep coming back to are .NET and JavaScript.
I use Linux, Windows and macOS every day, and .NET’s own UI frameworks, WinForms and WPF, always left me wanting more. JavaScript and React, on the other hand, were second nature after years of use, so my personal projects drifted toward hybrid apps on Electron.
The catch was native code: using a single native DLL from Electron meant a detour through N-API. If I could write the backend in .NET instead, building apps would be a lot more enjoyable. That thought is where NetWiv began.
Q2Why start from TAURI instead of from scratch?
Electron ships a full copy of Chromium with every app, and the bundle size always bothered me. Looking for something lighter, I came across TAURI®, which uses the system’s own WebView, and I was struck by how well its API and toolchain were designed.
Rust, though, wasn’t a language I was at home in yet. So the idea took shape: connect just TAURI’s core WebView engine through a facade, and .NET could have a hybrid framework of its own.
Q3What did you put the most care into?
A small bundle, a fast start and the .NET development experience people already know, all in one place. That’s why the NativeAOT publishing pipeline, one of .NET’s newest technologies, got so much of my attention.
The other is type safety. The longer a hybrid app lives, the more mistakes creep in through API names written as strings. So NetWiv generates and checks the code your frontend uses to call C#, rather than leaving it to hand-written strings.
Q4You started on TAURI. Why aim to stand on your own?
TAURI’s API let me put the project’s skeleton together remarkably fast. But some of the directions TAURI is taking, such as mobile, aren’t where NetWiv is headed. I want to keep TAURI’s development philosophy as a foundation while NetWiv finds its own character.
The goal, ultimately, is a framework that feels as .NET as it can.
Q5How did you use AI?
“Vibe coding” is the phrase of the moment, and software built that way is flooding the market. Depending on how you look at it, NetWiv could be seen as one of those projects, and that wouldn’t be unfair.
I was writing code long before AI went mainstream, but I don’t think the way developers work has ever changed as fast as it is changing now. I welcome that change, and I use AI heavily both at work and at home.
A framework of this size would normally take several passionate contributors months, if not years. Because AI handles that kind of work so efficiently, I dared to take it on.
With paradigms like loop engineering and harnesses appearing and disappearing every day, NetWiv is also my proving ground for riding that current.
Q6Who would you like to try NetWiv?
I hope it becomes a bridgehead for developers who enjoy .NET to build hybrid apps with web technology, lightly and quickly. It doesn’t have to be a grand project.