.NET Core
.NET Core is a free and open-source, managed computer software framework for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. It is a cross-platform successor to.NET Framework. The project is primarily developed by Microsoft and released under the MIT License.
History
1.0, announced on November 12, 2014, was released on June 27, 2016, along with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, which enables.NET Core development. 1.0.4 and.NET Core 1.1.1 were released along with.NET Core Tools 1.0 and Visual Studio 2017 on March 7, 2017..NET Core 2.0 was released on August 14, 2017, along with Visual Studio 2017 15.3, ASP.NET Core 2.0, and Entity Framework Core 2.0. 2.1 was released on May 30, 2018. NET Core 2.2 was released on December 4, 2018.
.NET Core 3 was announced on May 7, 2019, at Microsoft Build. Version 3.0.0 was released September 23, 2019. With.NET Core 3, the framework supports development of desktop application software, artificial intelligence/machine learning and IoT apps.
The next release after.NET Core 3.1 will be.NET 5. The.NET Framework will not receive any further major versions, and.NET 5 will be the only.NET meant for new applications going forwardhence the removal of the "Core" branding and skipping of version 4 to avoid confusion with the.NET Framework 4.x. The first preview of.NET 5 was released on March 16, 2020.
| Version | Release date | Released with | Latest update | Latest update date | Support Ends |
| .NET Core 1.0 | 2016-06-27 | Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 | 1.0.16 | 2019-05-14 | |
| .NET Core 1.1 | 2016-11-16 | Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.0 | 1.1.13 | 2019-05-14 | |
| .NET Core 2.0 | 2017-08-14 | Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.3 | 2.0.9 | 2018-07-10 | |
| .NET Core 2.1 | 2018-05-30 | Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.7 | 2.1.19 | 2020-06-09 | |
| .NET Core 2.2 | 2018-12-04 | Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.0 | 2.2.8 | 2019-11-19 | |
| .NET Core 3.0 | 2019-09-23 | Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.3 | 3.0.3 | 2020-02-18 | |
| .NET Core 3.1 | 2019-12-03 | Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.4 | 3.1.5 | 2020-06-09 | |
| .NET 5 | 2020-11 | 5.0 Preview 7 | 2020-07-21 | ||
| .NET 6 | 2021-11 | ||||
| .NET 7 | 2022-11 | ||||
| .NET 8 | 2023-11 |
.NET Core supports Alpine Linux.
Language support
.NET Core fully supports C# and F# and supports Visual Basic.NET.Currently VB.NET compiles and runs on.NET Core, but the separate Visual Basic Runtime is not implemented. Microsoft announced that.NET Core 3 would include the Visual Basic Runtime, after two years the announcement was updated to.NET Core 5.
Architecture
supports four cross-platform scenarios: ASP.NET Core web apps; command-line apps; libraries; and Universal Windows Platform apps. Prior to.NET Core 3.0, it did not implement Windows Forms or Windows Presentation Foundation, which render the standard GUI for desktop software on Windows. Now, however,.NET Core 3 supports desktop technologies Windows Forms, WPF, and Universal Windows Platform.supports use of NuGet packages. Unlike.NET Framework, which is serviced using Windows Update, relies on its package manager to receive updates.
The two main components of are CoreCLR and CoreFX, respectively, which are comparable to the Common Language Runtime and the Framework Class Library of the.NET Framework's Common Language Infrastructure implementation.
As a CLI implementation of Virtual Execution System, CoreCLR is a complete runtime and virtual machine for managed execution of programs and includes a just-in-time compiler called RyuJIT. also contains CoreRT, the runtime optimized to be integrated into AOT compiled native binaries.
As a CLI implementation of the foundational Standard Libraries, CoreFX shares a subset of APIs, however, it also comes with its own APIs that are not part of the. A variant of the library is used for UWP.
The command-line interface offers an execution entry point for operating systems and provides developer services like compilation and package management.