02 - ASP.NET Core Introduction

ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core is a free, open-source and cloud optimized web framework which can run on Windows, Linux, or Mac.It is the new version of ASP.NET. The framework is a complete rewrite from scratch in order to make it open source, modular and cross-platform. It was initially launched as ASP.NET 5 but then it was renamed to ASP.NET Core.

ASP.NET Core is a modular framework distributed as NuGet packages. This allows us to include packages that are required in our application.

ASP.NET Core applications run on both, .Net Core and traditional .NET framework (.NET Framework 4.x).

ASP.NET Core is designed to be deployed on cloud as well as on-premises. Developers can now build cloud-based web applications, IoT (Internet of Thing) and mobile backend applications using ASP.NET Core framework which can run on Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems.

ASP.NET Core is an open source framework supported by Microsoft and the community, so you can also contribute or download the source code from the respective repositories on Github.

ASP.NET Core Version History

Version	Release Date
ASP.NET Core 2.0	August 2017
ASP.NET Core 1.1	November 2016
ASP.NET Core 1.0	June 2016

Learn more about ASP.NET Core releases on GitHub.

.NET Core

There is a confuse between ASP.NET Core and .NET Core. ASP.NET Core and .NET Core are not the same. They are different, just like ASP.NET and .NET Framework are different.

.NET Core is a fast, lightweight, modular and open source framework for creating web applications and services that run on Windows, Linux and Mac. So, it is a platform on which ASP.NET Core application runs.

.NET Core is named "Core" because it includes core features of the .NET framework. The main objective of .NET Core is to make .NET framework open source, and cross-platform compatible so that it can be used in resource-constrained environments. It includes minimum features that are required to run a basic .NET Core app and other advanced features that can be included as a package from NuGet.

The following figure illustrates the components of .NET Core.

.NET Core Components

As you can see above, .NET Core includes .NET Compiler platform Roslyn, .NET Core runtime CoreCLR, .NET Core framework CoreFX and ASP.NET Core . ASP.NET Core is a part of .NET Core SDK so you don't need to install ASP.NET Core separately. ASP.NET Core and .NET Core is a part of .NET Foundation.

Visit .NET Core repository on Github to contribute or download the source code.