What am I creating with these templates?

[EmrecanKaracayir]

UWP is clear yes. But when I create a project with Blank App, Packaged (WinUI 3 Desktop) template, I don't know which platform it is. Is it WPF, is it WinForms? What exactly is used in this template?

[ghost1372]

The templates are clear, they all create a new project based on WinUI3. (with c++ or c# language)
There is no template for WPF or Winform

[EmrecanKaracayir]

So, WinUI is in the same category with WPF and Winforms. It is the next app development platform not just UI framework, am I right?

[ghost1372]

So, WinUI is in the same category with WPF and Winforms. It is the next app development platform not just UI framework, am I right?

They are in the same category because they all use the desktop tag. I think Yes, you are right.

The Windows App SDK empowers all Windows desktop apps with modern Windows UI, APIs, and platform features, including back-compat support, shipped via NuGet.

[andrewleader]

@EmrecanKaracayir thanks for the questions (and thanks ghost1372 for helping), just to add some additional clarity...

WinUI 3, WPF, and WinForms are all UI frameworks. They all run on the desktop platform (as in they have access to Win32 APIs + UWP APIs, unlike the UWP platform which only had access to UWP APIs).

Developers usually refer to their app type based on their predominant UI framework, so developers will often say they built a "WinUI 3 app" or a "WPF app", but both of those are running on the desktop platform and share similar platform APIs like the System.IO.File APIs, and only differ in their UI framework.

WinUI 3 is our newest and recommended UI framework choice, but you can still build a WPF or WinForms app and use the latest non-WinUI WinAppSDK APIs like the Windowing APIs and the AppLifecycle APIs. And in the future, you'll be able to add WinUI 3 controls to a WPF or WinForms app via XAML Islands.

[EmrecanKaracayir]

That made my life a lot easier. Thank you for the clear explanation.