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
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
Updated May 2026
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.
What to do by team size
- Solo
- free
- Small team
- free
- Larger team
- free
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Trust Signals
License: MIT License
Use freely, including commercial. Just keep the license.
Commercial use: ✓ Yes
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