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ASP.NET Core

Open-source web application framework

ASP.NET Core is an open-source modular web-application framework. It is a redesign of ASP.NET that unites the previously separate ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web API into a single programming model. Despite being a new framework, built on a new web stack, it does have a high degree of concept compatibility with ASP.NET. The ASP.NET Core framework supports side-by-side versioning so that different applications being developed on a single machine can target different versions of ASP.NET Core. This was not possible with previous versions of ASP.NET. ASP.NET Core initially ran on both the Windows-only .NET Framework and the cross-platform .NET. However, support for the .NET Framework was dropped beginning with ASP.Net Core 3.0.

Blazor is a recent, optional component that supports WebAssembly. Since version 5.0, Blazor has dropped support for some older web browsers, including Microsoft Edge Legacy and Internet Explorer 11.

01Release history

Version number Release date End of support Supported Visual Studio Version(s)
Unsupported: 1.0 2016-06-27 2019-06-27 Visual Studio 2015, 2017
Unsupported: 1.1 2016-11-18 2019-06-27 Visual Studio 2015, 2017
Unsupported: 2.0 2017-08-14 2018-10-01 Visual Studio 2017
Unsupported: 2.1 long-term support 2018-05-30 2021-08-21 Visual Studio 2017
Unsupported: 2.2 2018-12-04 2019-12-23 Visual Studio 2017 15.9 and 2019 16.0 preview 1
Supported: 2.3 long-term support 2025-01-14 2027-04-07 Visual Studio 2017
Unsupported: 3.0 2019-09-23 2020-03-03 Visual Studio 2017 and 2019
Unsupported: 3.1 long-term support 2019-12-03 2022-12-03 Visual Studio 2019
Unsupported: 5.0 2020-11-10 2022-05-08 Visual Studio 2019 16.8
Unsupported: 6.0 long-term support 2021-11-08 2024-11-08 Visual Studio 2022
Unsupported: 7.0 standard-term support 2022-11-08 2024-05-14 Visual Studio 2022
Supported: 8.0 long-term support 2023-11-14 2026-11-10 Visual Studio 2022
Supported: 9.0 standard-term support 2024-11-12 2026-11-10 Visual Studio 2022
Latest version: 10.0 long-term support 2025-11-11 2028-11-14 Visual Studio 2026
Legend: Unsupported Supported Latest version Preview version Future version

Notes:

02Naming

Originally deemed ASP.NET vNext, the framework was going to be called ASP.NET 5 when ready. However, in order to avoid implying it is an update to the existing ASP.NET framework, Microsoft later changed the name to ASP.NET Core at the 1.0 release.

03Features

  • No-compile developer experience (i.e. compilation is continuous, so that the developer does not have to invoke the compilation command)
  • Modular framework distributed as NuGet packages
  • Cloud-optimized runtime (optimized for the internet)
  • Host-agnostic via Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) support, runs in IIS or standalone
  • A unified story for building web UI and web APIs (i.e. both the same)
  • A cloud-ready environment-based configuration system
  • A lightweight and modular HTTP request pipeline
  • Build and run cross-platform ASP.NET Core apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux
  • Open-source and community-focused
  • Side-by-side app versioning when targeting .NET
  • In-built support for dependency injection
  • Enhanced Security compared to Asp.Net

04Components

Watch videos about ASP.NET CoreExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article ASP.NET Core, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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