Blazor Vendor Lock

#blazor #csharp #dotnet #aspdotnet

Have you ever faced this famous question?

If we migrate to Blazor, wouldn't it be a "Vendor Lock"?

This is a common concern of people when I consult with their company to migrate their technology stack to Blazor.

The term “vendor lock” describes the situation in which customers depend on a single manufacturer or supplier for some product (i.e., a good or service), and cannot shift to another vendor without incurring substantial costs or inconvenience [mitre.org].

In my opinion, this is a great question as it shows that the manager has a long-term mindset. It doesn't question Blazor's capabilities (which are awesome), but it questions if this decision locks us to a specific vendor: .NET.

Vendor Diversity

While "Vendor Lock" is an important concern that should be considered, there are other concerns like "Vendor Diversity". If you have different technology stacks, you need to have different teams with different skills. This doubles your HR concerns to find the right people for each stack.

It seems Vendor Diversity is a much bigger concern than Vendor Lock.

The key question here, is if we want Vendor Diversity or not?

Small Team Big Impact

So, sticking to a platform is not necessarily a wrong decision if the platform is worth it. In a previous blog post of mine, I describe how a cross-platform stack can help your team achieve more with fewer members. You can check it out here: Small Team Big Impact: Blazor Magic

If you are going to choose one stack to stick to, .NET is an amazing decision. With .NET, you can write code almost everywhere:

Backend (ASP.NET Core)
Frontend (Blazor)
Mobile: Android, iOS (Blazor+Maui)
IoT (RaspberryPI)
Gaming (Unity)
Desktop: Windows, macOS Linux (Blazor+Maui)

With this ecosystem, I think it's much more of a Vendor Luck than a Vendor Lock.

Top comments (2)

Mo • Sep 13 '23

I totally agree with you. Sticking to a platform is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it’s worth it. I think .NET is an amazing decision for a cross-platform stack because it allows developers to write code almost everywhere.