ASP.NET Core explained

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.^{[3] [4]} 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.^[5]

Blazor is a recent (optional) component to support WebAssembly and since version 5.0, it has dropped support for some old web browsers. While current Microsoft Edge works, the legacy version of it, i.e. "Microsoft Edge Legacy" and Internet Explorer 11 was dropped when you use Blazor.^[6]

Release history

Version Number	Release Date	End of Support	Supported Visual Studio Version(s)
	2016-06-27	2019-06-27	Visual Studio 2015, 2017
	2016-11-18	2019-06-27	Visual Studio 2015, 2017
	2017-08-14	2018-10-01	Visual Studio 2017
long-term support	2018-05-30	2021-08-21[7]	Visual Studio 2017
	2018-12-04[8]	2019-12-23[9]	Visual Studio 2017 15.9 and 2019 16.0 preview 1
	2019-09-23[10]	2020-03-03	Visual Studio 2017 and 2019
long-term support	2019-12-03[11]	2022-12-03	Visual Studio 2019
	2020-11-10	2022-05-08	Visual Studio 2019 16.8
long-term support	2021-11-08[12]	2024-11-08	Visual Studio 2022
standard-term support[13]	2022-11-08[14]	2024-05-14	Visual Studio 2022
long-term support[15]	2023-11-14[16]	2026-11-10	Visual Studio 2022
standard-term support[17]	2024-11-12[18]	2026-05-12	Visual Studio 2022

Naming

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.^[19]

Features

• 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^{[20] [21]} – 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 ^[22]

Components

• Entity Framework (EF) Core
• Identity Core
• MVC Core
• Razor Core
• SignalR
• Blazor
• Kestrel web server

See also

• .NET Compiler Platform
• Mono
• Visual Studio Code

External links

• • ASP.NET Core on GitHub

Notes and References

1. Web site: 2023-11-14. Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 8. 2023-11-19. .NET Blog. en-US.
2. Web site: ASP.NET Core license. . 2021-09-29.
3. Web site: Choose between ASP.NET 4.x and ASP.NET Core. docs.microsoft.com. 10 April 2024 .
4. Web site: singh Satinder. Introduction to ASP.NET Core. microsoft.com. 10 July 2017.
5. Web site: Introduction to ASP.NET Core. docs.microsoft.com.
6. Web site: [Discussion] Updated Blazor browser support for .NET 5 · Issue #26475 · dotnet/aspnetcore]. 2020-11-11. GitHub. en.
7. Web site: GitHub - dotnet/core: Home repository of .NET and .NET Core. October 20, 2019. GitHub.
8. Web site: ASP.NET Blog | Announcing ASP.NET Core 2.2, available today!. December 4, 2018. ASP.NET Blog.
9. Web site: .NET Core and .NET 5 official support policy. Microsoft. en. 2019-12-06.
10. Web site: ASP.NET Blog | ASP.NET Core and Blazor updates in .NET Core 3.0. September 23, 2019. ASP.NET Blog.
11. Web site: ASP.NET Core updates in .NET Core 3.1. December 3, 2019. ASP.NET Blog.
12. Web site: 2021-11-08. Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 6. 2021-11-19. .NET Blog. en-US.
13. Web site: .NET and .NET Core Support Policy . Microsoft . 2024-10-02.
14. Web site: 2022-11-08. Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 7. 2024-10-02. .NET Blog. en-US.
15. Web site: .NET and .NET Core Support Policy . Microsoft . November 19, 2023.
16. Web site: 2022-11-08. Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 8. 2023-11-19. .NET Blog. en-US.
17. Web site: .NET and .NET Core Support Policy . Microsoft . November 12, 2024.
18. Web site: 2024-11-12. Announcing NET 9. 2024-11-12. .NET Blog. en-US.
19. Web site: ASP.NET 6 is dead - Introducing ASP.NET Core 1.0 and .NET Core 1.0. Jeffrey T. Fritz. .NET Web Development and Tools Blog. 20 January 2016.
20. Web site: OWIN . ASP.NET 0.0.1 documentation. 17 September 2024 .
21. Web site: Roadmap . Github.
22. Web site: ASP.NET vs ASP.NE CORE . ASP.NET VS. ASP.NET Core: The Ultimate Showdown. 17 February 2024 .