This article presents an introduction to Microsoft's ASP.NET Core Framework. All software development discussions these days center around Free, Open-Source and Cross-Platform development.
Microsoft is mainly well known for its Windows-based products, but today marks a new era for software creation; thus, they have launched its groundbreaking product called ASP.NET Core as part of this revolution in software creation - we will cover each tip in detail here in this article.
ASP.NET's Past
As we know, ASP.NET has long been considered an essential framework for building data-driven web applications. Since its introduction, however, the Framework has undergone an ongoing evolution, with the most notable step being its evolution into what has come to be known as.NET Core.
The ASP.NET 4. x Framework does not integrate ASP.NET Core (.NET) as part of itself; instead, it's an entirely distinct framework.
The current version of ASP.NET Framework 4. x was completely revised for this modular Framework, making it far more compact and flexible. Some may maintain that not much has changed; one significant and fundamental modification to the ASP.NET Framework has been introduced with ASP.NET Core.
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What Is ASP.NET Core?
What is ASP.NET core? According to Microsoft, ASP.NET Core is an open-source core app version of ASP.NET that works well with Docker on multiple operating systems like Windows, Linux and macOS.
ASP.NET Core, the new Web Framework version from Microsoft explicitly designed to run on the.NET Core Platform, was unveiled earlier this year and officially made available as an open-source and lightweight cross-platform framework in 2016.
Intended to work locally and remotely (cloud computing) via various components available within it, its primary use case will likely involve creating onsite and offsite Web applications.
Microsoft and the.NET community work collaboratively on maintaining cross-platform, open source.NET (.NET Core).
GitHub hosts class libraries, runtime components, compilers and languages as part of this ecosystem application development; additionally, Windows desktop frameworks like ASP.NET Core web framework and Entity Framework Core data access library are freely accessible.
While ASP.NET Core 1. x and 2. x apps may be designed to run on both the.NET Framework (Windows only) and.NET Core (Cross-platform), versions 3.
x and later allow only for cross-platform development and execution of apps using these two frameworks. November 2025 saw the debut of Microsoft.NET 7, its seventh iteration of this Framework. Microsoft.NET core was rebranded to just ".NET", meaning all future iterations would be known by their version numbers instead of being known by "Core".
Microsoft will launch a.NET framework every two years with three years in lines of code Long-Term Support (LTS), starting with.NET Core.
Between these releases, they plan on offering 18 months of Short-Term Support (STS) as an educational piece on understanding the release cycles of both versions of NET.
Why ASP.NET Core?
Why ASP.NET Core? The ASP.NET Core framework has grown increasingly popular previous versions among developers over time and for various purposes; some examples can be seen below:
Open Source
One of the primary draws of the ASP.NET Core framework is its Open Source nature - anyone is free to download its source code and edit or create their versions as desired.
Cross-Platform Development and Deployment
From its inception, ASP.NET Core Framework was intended to be cross-platform in both development and deployment environments - meaning we don't need separate frameworks to develop applications across varying platforms.
Let's examine cross - platform development from an ASP.NET Core perspective by comparing it with previous iterations of the Framework.
Early versions of the ASP.NET Framework could only run on Windows operating systems. At the same time, applications created using the newer ASP.NET Core platform allow them to run across a broader spectrum, including Linux, Mac and Windows platforms.
Hosted via Nginx, Docker, Apache or even self-host deployment; older ASP.NET Framework 4. x applications were limited to only IIS hosting options.
-
CLI Support:.NET applications can be created, executed and published using Command Line Interface (CLI) commands, making creation, construction and execution of.NET Core applications possible using these commands.
The following articles will discuss their usage for developing apps with CLI.
- Quick: In ASP.NET Core, System.Web.dll is no longer necessary for browser-server communication between clients and servers; applications can include all required packages thanks to this Framework, significantly increasing scalability and performance while decreasing request pipeline volume.
- Dependency Injection Design Pattern with IoC Container: The Dependency Injection Design Pattern has become one of the most frequently employed design patterns for real-time applications, offering testability and maintenance due to an integrated Inversion of Control container for automated dependency injection.
Unified Framework for MVC and Web API Development
ASP.NET Core offers an efficient programming model for creating Web APIs and applications, meaning both can be managed using one controller class cross-platform compatibility.
An ActionResult interface should be returned, inheriting from the Controller base class as we create our Controller class in an application utilizing ActionResult for either Web APPs or APIs (like JsonResult or ViewResult; there may also be others - more on these later). Controller action methods in an ASP.NET Core Web API application typically return JsonResult as their result type; alternatively, an ASP.NET Core application might return ViewResult instead.
Also Read: Revolutionize Development: Asp.net Core Microservices Boost 40% Efficiency
Testing and Maintainability
The ASP.NET Core MVC framework makes testing and maintaining applications built with it effortless, thanks to testing each component independently and development framework dividing your app's components into separate parts for testing purposes.
Applications constructed with this platform can easily integrate testing frameworks such as MSTest, xUnit, or MOQ to simulate any scenario imaginable.
- Integration With Current User Interface Framework: Our solution gives you complete control and use of popular UI frameworks like Bootstrap ReactJS/Angular for optimal use and control.
Hosting
Any web server such as IIS or Apache may be used to host an ASP.NET Core web app across various platforms - IIS is used as the default implementation of the modern web application .NET Framework.
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Code Sharing: Code sharing allows you to develop class libraries compatible with Mono and.NET Framework 4.
x frameworks and any future ones - thus sharing one code base across various frameworks.
- Side-by-Side App Versioning: Because ASP.NET Core runs on top of .NET Core, it enables multiple versions of an application to coexist simultaneously on one server.
Framework Extermination
The ASP.NET Core MVC Framework was designed with extreme extensibility in console application mind, meaning you can start developing applications today and expand them at will in future versions.
Below are a few features which add up to its expandable nature:
- View Components
- Tag Helpers
- Routing
We will cover more detail regarding these features in subsequent articles.
Reduced Deployment Footprint
Because an ASP.NET Core application runs on.NET Core libraries - which provides a smaller version of the entire Framework - its deployment size will likely be smaller, thus decreasing deployment footprint and saving costs for deployment costs.
Outstanding tools for developers
ASP.NET Core comes packed with numerous pre-installed tools designed for ease of use and enjoyment, making their use accessible and enjoyable for anyone when working with tools such as ReSharper (which performs on-the-fly code analysis and error removal in C#, VB.NET, XAML, ASP.NET and XML code) or Libman (which makes installing Bootstrap and JQuery straightforward), building tests or developing remarkable applications is made much more straightforward than before.
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Difference Between MVC and Web Forms in ASP.NET
ASP.NET MVC
- ASP.NET MVC offers an ideal framework for developing web apps using current web standards - providing interactive web experiences using one platform with one codebase and no third-party integration required.
- Based on an architectural design pattern, ASP.NET MVC separates an application into three main parts of the core version.
View (user interface representation), Controller (manages user input and coordinates between model and view), and Model (data and business logic).
- By breaking its program into three distinct parts, ASP.NET MVC ensures a clear separation of concerns for improved code organization, maintenance and testing by distinguishing model, views, controller entities into discrete entities with specific roles.
- Due to ASP.NET MVC's flexible routing system, users can create customized routes corresponding to specific controller actions in cross platform support.
- Testability can be enhanced using ASP.NET MVC by breaking up concerns into separate modules and making writing unit tests more straightforward.
Web Forms for ASP.NET
- To expedite development and ensure efficient data access, Web Forms of ASP.NET offer the perfect combination.
- ASP.NET Web Forms use an event-driven programming model, which is standard.
- Foundational to any application are server controls.
- Utilizing ASP.NET Web Forms makes maintaining clean code a more challenging development process as presentation and business logic often mix in one file's code behind.
- By employing the file-based routing mechanism of ASP.NET Web Forms, URLs map directly to actual server files.
- Due to the complex interaction between user interface and server-side logic, writing unit tests for ASP.NET Web Forms is often challenging.
Comparing ASP.NET Core and.NET Core
Many individuals can become confused when trying to understand the distinctions between .NET core vs ASP.NET core; please be aware that they do not work interchangeably like they once did with each other - much as with ASP.NET and its Framework did back when these terms first entered popular culture.
In any event, both frameworks offer distinct services: for example, ASP.NET Core is an open-source, lightweight, modular and speedy framework used for building Windows/Linux web applications and services running in Runtime Environment mode on any given Operating system.
At the same time, operating apps are operated within an operating environment of.NET Core Runtime Environment, which supports their deployment on any operating platform supporting it, whereas applications built using either of them will use either runtime Environment platform, which exists alongside its software platform counterpart whereas.NET applications do not.
.NET Core (.NET)
- This cross-platform and open-source software serves as the environment necessary to run ASP.NET Core Web applications on various platforms.
- Applications developed using the.NET Core platform can use this runtime environment.
- Install the.NET Core SDK to develop applications and the.NET Core Runtime to execute them.
- Recent stable version is.NET 7, and we currently offer an early preview for.NET 8.
ASP.NET Core
- This cross-platform, open-source Framework makes creating various online apps such as MVC, Web API, and Razor Pages possible.
- ASP.NET Core is a framework for building web apps on the.NET Core platform, suitable for creating mobile, IoT and web-based apps that run seamlessly across devices and browsers.
- Both the.NET Framework and Core Platform may be utilized when running applications written with either 1.
x or 2.
z edition of ASP.NET Core.
- The.NET SDK and Runtime are necessary to create and execute.NET Core applications.
If you only want to run these apps, only installing.NET Runtime would suffice.
- The current stable version is ASP.NET Core 7, while a preview of version 8 has just begun.
Conclusion
One of ASP.NET Core's primary goals is performance; compared to other popular web frameworks, it is faster. Furthermore, its modular architecture minimizes overhead expenses while adding sophisticated features through Packages that can meet specific application needs in ASP.Net Core Development.
High performance can be attained, memory and deployment space requirements can be reduced significantly, and maintenance can be easy.
Paul is a highly skilled Full Stack Developer with a solid educational background that includes a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a Master's degree in Software Engineering, as well as a decade of hands-on experience. Certifications such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect, and Agile Scrum Master bolster his knowledge. Paul's excellent contributions to the software development industry have garnered him a slew of prizes and accolades, cementing his status as a top-tier professional. Aside from coding, he finds relief in her interests, which include hiking through beautiful landscapes, finding creative outlets through painting, and giving back to the community by participating in local tech education programmer.
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