What is ASP.NET Core?

This shot explains what ASP.NET Core is, including its various components and features.

Prerequisite

Basic understanding of the CSharp programming language is necessary. A basic understanding of any other programming language is a plus.

What is ASP.NET Core?

ASP.NET Core is an open-source framework powered by Microsoft for developing fast and secure web application services within .NET. It’s also engineered to work across operating systems (it’s cross-platform).

Initially, its first version was proposed in 2016 with the name ASP.NET Next version, and Microsoft was to change the name to ASP.NET 5 upon its release. However, they later changed the name to ASP.NET Core during its first release in 2016.

ASP.NET Core release history

Version Number	Release Date	Supported Visual Studio Version
1.0	2016-06-27	Visual Studio 2015, 2017
1.1	2016-11-18	Visual Studio 2015, 2017
2.0	2017-08-14	Visual Studio 2017
2.1 (long-term support)	2018-05-30	Visual Studio 2017
2.2	2018-12-04	Visual Studio 2017 15.9
3.0	2019-09-23	Visual Studio 2017, 2019
3.1 (long-term support)	2019-12-03	Visual Studio 2019
5.0	2020-11-10	Visual Studio 2019 16.8

Why use ASP.NET Core?

Developers all over the world use or have used ASP.NET 4 to create web apps. ASP.NET Core is an advanced version of ASP.NET 4 with some newly introduced features. These include architectural updates, which result in a leaner and more modular framework.

There are numerous advantages in choosing .NET Core, and these advantages increase with each update. Just to list a few of the advantages of .NET Core over .NET Framework:

• It has inbuilt support for popular JavaScript frameworks, like Angular and Reacts.

• Cross-platform; runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

• Razor markup more natural with HTML

• Increased performance

• Improve testability and Readability

• Dependency Injection was introduced to avoiding direct referencing a project

• Build web apps and services, apps, and mobile backends.

Creating a new ASP.NET project

Once you have installed Visual Studio 2019, you can start building a new ASP.NET Core Application from the New Project menu option.

On the New Project dialogue box, you will see different templates for Web projects:

• ASP.NET Web Application: This is the simple ASP.NET application template.

• ASP.NET Core Web Application: This will start you with a cross-platform compatible project that runs on the .NET Core framework.

• ASP.NET Core with Angular: This starts you with a cross-platform compatible project where you can build your app around a JavaScript framework called Angular

• ASP.NET Core with React.js: This starts you with a cross-platform compatible project where you can build your app around a JavaScript framework called React.js

• ASP.NET Core Web Application (.NET Framework): This starts a new project that runs on the standard .NET Framework on Windows.