.NET Support Policy

Last updated: November 12, 2024

.NET and .NET Core

.NET and .NET Core refer to several technologies including the runtime, the SDK, ASP.NET Core, and Entity Framework Core.

Supported versions

The following table tracks release and end of support dates for .NET and .NET Core versions.

Release schedule

Major .NET versions are released annually in November. Each .NET release is defined as either Standard Term Support (STS) or Long Term Support (LTS), at the beginning of the release.
STS releases are released in even-numbered years and LTS releases are releases in odd-numbered years.
The quality of all releases are exactly the same, the only difference is the length of support. LTS releases get free support and patches for 3 years.
STS releases get free support and patches for 18 months.

Patch updates are released monthly on the second Tuesday of each month, also known as Patch Tuesday. Within a release's support lifecycle, systems must remain current on released patch updates. Patches to releases are compatible, which eliminates risk adversely affecting applications.

For details, see the .NET and .NET Core support policy.

STS releases were previously known as Current releases.

.NET Aspire

.NET Aspire is a cloud-native framework for building observable, production-ready, distributed applications.

View the .NET Aspire support policy

.NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI)

.NET MAUI is a framework for building modern, multi-platform, natively compiled iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows apps using C# and XAML in a single codebase.

View the .NET MAUI support policy

.NET Framework

.NET Framework covers a broad set of Windows technologies including the .NET Framework Base Class Libraries, ASP.NET Web Forms, WCF, and more. Support for .NET Framework follows the Lifecycle Policy of the parent Windows operating system. The .NET Framework is updated machine-wide automatically by Windows Update. .NET Framework 4.8 is the latest version of .NET Framework and will continue to be distributed with future releases of Windows. As long as it's installed on a supported version of Windows, .NET Framework 4.8 will continue to also be supported.

View the .NET Framework support policy

.NET Platform Extensions

.NET Platform Extensions are a set of libraries that supplement the base .NET class libraries. They provide additional functionality that is not included in the core .NET SDK, enhancing the capabilities of .NET applications by offering additional classes, interfaces, and methods.

View the .NET Platform Extensions support policy

ASP.NET

ASP.NET is a web development framework for .NET and includes components that ship in .NET Framework, .NET Core, .NET, and as external packages.

View the ASP.NET support policy

Xamarin

Xamarin offers a set of tools and technologies for creating native iOS, Android, and Windows applications.

View the Xamarin support policy

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Client

WCF Client is the .NET version of WCF client libraries and enables applications built on .NET to communicate with WCF services.

View the WCF Client support policy

CoreWCF

CoreWCF is a port of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to .NET and .NET Core. It's a community project with official support from Microsoft.

View the CoreWCF support policy

.NET Native

.NET Native is a precompilation technology for building and deploying UWP apps. .NET Native is included with Visual Studio 2015 and later versions.

View the .NET Native support policy