.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.
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.
.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 free support and release every other year. You choose when to update your application with a release. Patches to LTS releases are compatible, which eliminates risk adversely affecting applications.
View 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.
View the Xamarin support policy
Unlike .NET Framework on Windows, .NET Core and .NET 5 can be installed side-by-side with each application for any OS. This means updates are determined by you. Customers can choose Long Term Support (LTS) releases or Current releases. LTS releases will receive only critical fixes throughout their lifecycle. Current releases will receive these same fixes and will also be updated with compatible innovations and features. For details, see the .NET Core and .NET 5 support policy page.
.NET Core 2.1 and .NET Core 3.1 are the current LTS releases made available on August 2018 and December 2019, respectively. After .NET Core 3.1, the product will be renamed to .NET and LTS releases will be made available every other year in November. So, the next LTS release will be .NET 6, which will ship in November 2021. This will help customers plan upgrades more effectively. For policy details, see the .NET Core and .NET 5 support policy page.
Not all fixes require applications to be patched. In the case of security fixes that an application may require, customers should keep up with LTS releases. Updates to .NET Core versions will generally be compatible with each other. Patches to LTS releases are compatible, which eliminates risk adversely affecting applications.
Microsoft supports official releases of the following open-source projects on github.com that make up the .NET platform: dotnet/runtime, dotnet/roslyn, dotnet/wpf, dotnet/winforms, dotnet/aspnetcore, dotnet/efcore, dotnet/ef6, and supporting repos and components. Additionally, many NuGet packages are also supported. See the licensing terms on those components and repos. For a list of the main .NET repositories, see .NET repositories.
Yes. Many products both within and outside Microsoft rely on .NET Framework. The .NET Framework is a component of Windows and receives the same support as Windows version which it ships with or on which it is installed. .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 is installed on a supported version of Windows, .NET Framework 4.8 will continue to also be supported. For details, see the .NET Framework support policy.
Red Hat supports .NET Core on RHEL. Red Hat builds .NET Core from source and makes it available in the Red Hat Software Collections for RHEL 7 and through AppStream for RHEL 8. Red Hat and Microsoft collaborate to ensure that everything works well on RHEL. For more information, see Developing .NET applications in RHEL 8 and Product Documentation for .NET Core 3.1.
Our step-by-step tutorial will help you get .NET running on your computer.
Supported on Windows, Linux, and macOS