prism vs mvvm light for wpf

Question

We are starting a WPF with MVVM project and have to decide on PRISM or MVVM Light (I am new to both these frameworks). I have read through a few posts but still have a few quest

Answer 1

You cannot fully compare Prism and MvvmLight.

Prism is more about application architecture even though Prism has been known as MVVM framework. Actually until Prism 5 it had nothing to do with MVVM and It didn't have BaseViewModel class in Prism 4.1 and in prior.

Prism is not a MVVM framework it is application framework it sits higher than that. Prism 5 introduced some support for MVVM and Prism 6 took it futher.

MVVM is just another aspect of problems that prism provides guidance to solve.

It is like comparing Angular vs. Knockout. AngularJS manages the whole application and defines guidelines on how the application code should be structured, whereas with KnockoutJS the application structure is entirely up to you. It is a similar case between Prism and MvvmLight.

Prism provides an implementation of a collection of design patterns that are helpful in writing well structured and maintainable XAML applications, including MVVM, dependency injection, commanding, event aggregation, and more. Prism's core functionality is a shared code base in a Portable Class Library targeting these platforms; WPF, Windows 10 UWP, and Xamarin Forms.

I would recommend to use Prism if you are developing an enterprise level application using wpf.

Please watch this Webinar about MVVM Made Simple with Prism. The presenter is Brian Lagunas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfBy2nfykqY