.NET Support Policy
Support policies for the various technologies that make up the .NET platform.
Support policies for the various technologies that make up the .NET platform.
.NET Core and .NET 5 refer to several technologies including the runtime, ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, and more. .NET Core and future versions of .NET provide Long Term Support (LTS) releases that get three years of patches and free support. Patches to releases are compatible, which eliminates risk adversely affecting applications.
For details, see the .NET Core and .NET 5 support policy.
The following table tracks release dates and end of support dates for .NET Core and .NET 5 versions.
| Version | Original Release Date | Latest Patch Version | Patch Release Date | Support Level | End of Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .NET 5 | November 10, 2020 | 5.0.5 | April 06, 2021 | Current | 3 months after .NET 6 release (around February 2022) |
| .NET Core 3.1 | December 3, 2019 | 3.1.14 | April 13, 2021 | LTS | December 3, 2022 |
| .NET Core 2.1 | May 30, 2018 | 2.1.27 | April 13, 2021 | LTS | August 21, 2021 |
Begining in November 2020 with the release of .NET 5, major versions release every year in November. Customers can choose LTS or Current releases. 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. Current releases get free support and patches for 15 months. Patches are made to both LTS and Current releases at the same time. Within a release's support lifecycle, systems must remain current on released patch updates. For details, see the .NET Core and .NET 5 support policy.
.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
ASP.NET is a web development framework for .NET and includes components that ship in .NET Framework, .NET Core, .NET 5, and as external packages.
View the ASP.NET support policy
Xamarin offers a set of tools and technologies for creating native iOS, Android and Windows applications.
The .NET platform is officially supported by Microsoft. Microsoft ships official releases that are built and tested on Microsoft-maintained servers in Azure and supported just like any Microsoft product.
Our step-by-step tutorial will help you get .NET running on your computer.
Supported on Windows, Linux, and macOS