.NET logo

.NET

A free, cross-platform, open source developer platform for building many different types of applications
13.9K
5.6K
+ 1
1.9K

What is .NET?

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.
.NET is a tool in the Frameworks (Full Stack) category of a tech stack.
.NET is an open source tool with 20.5K GitHub stars and 4.8K GitHub forks. Here’s a link to .NET's open source repository on GitHub

Who uses .NET?

Companies
2244 companies reportedly use .NET in their tech stacks, including Accenture, Stack Overflow, and Trustpilot.

Developers
4393 developers on StackShare have stated that they use .NET.

.NET Integrations

C#, Microsoft Azure, Sentry, Datadog, and ASP.NET Core are some of the popular tools that integrate with .NET. Here's a list of all 174 tools that integrate with .NET.
Pros of .NET
271
Tight integration with visual studio
261
Stable code
189
Great community
182
Reliable and strongly typed server side language.
140
Microsoft
119
Fantastic documentation
89
Great 3rd party libraries
80
Speedy
71
Great azure integration
63
Great support
34
Highly productive
34
C#
34
Linq
31
High Performance
28
Great programming languages (C#, VB)
25
Open source
19
Powerful Web application framework (ASP.NET MVC)
16
Clean markup with razor
16
Fast
15
Powerful ORM (EntityFramework)
13
Dependency injection
10
Constantly improving to keep up with new trends
10
Visual studio + Resharper = <3
9
High-Performance
8
Security
8
TFS
7
Huge ecosystem and communities
7
Integrated and Reliable
7
Job opportunities
6
Light-weight
6
Lovely
5
Asynchrony
5
Variations
5
{get; set;}
4
Concurrent
4
Support and SImplicity
4
Default Debuging tools
4
Useful IoC
4
Scaffolding
4
Entity framework
3
Blazor
2
F♯
2
Nuget package manager
Decisions about .NET

Here are some stack decisions, common use cases and reviews by companies and developers who chose .NET in their tech stack.

I want to start a SaaS or product based company and thinking of going with the .NET family of technologies, as I have been working on it for the past 3 years. Can anyone provide insights on the pros and cons of this approach? Would I be able to run modern JavaScript frameworks on top of it like React/Vue.js/Node.js?

See more
Needs advice
on
Azure PipelinesAzure Pipelines
and
JenkinsJenkins

We are currently using Azure Pipelines for continous integration. Our applications are developed witn .NET framework. But when we look at the online Jenkins is the most widely used tool for continous integration. Can you please give me the advice which one is best to use for my case Azure pipeline or jenkins.

See more
Asad Gilani
Software Engineer at Lisec Automation · | 5 upvotes · 200.9K views
Needs advice
on
Handlebars.jsHandlebars.js
and
LiquidLiquid

@All: I am searching for the best template engine for .NET. I started looking into several template engines, including the Dotliquid, Handlebars.js, Scriban, and Razorlight. I found handlebar a bit difficult to use when using the loops and condition because you need to register for helper first. DotLiquid and Scriban were easy to use and in Razorlight I did not find the example for loops.

Can you please suggest which template engine is best suited for the use of conditional/list and looping and why? Or if anybody could provide me a resource or link where I can compare which is best?

Thanks In Advance

See more
Needs advice
on
Amazon S3Amazon S3
and
Azure StorageAzure Storage

I want to build an application for my company, mostly focusing on sharing files within employees but in a more secure and controlled manner. Please suggest a data store that would suit my needs. I am a .NET developer and looking for developing a Website in ASP.NET.

See more
Needs advice
on
MongoDBMongoDBNode.jsNode.js
and
ReactReact

Hello,

I will be programming my project in the coming months. I would need advice on the technology I will use.

I focus mainly on mobile apps, so it's clear there that it will be a native app written in Kotlin.

I will also need a backend (database, API). In the database, I will need to store words and their translations along with users and some statistics to start with.

I don't know which database to choose, whether NoSQL or SQL. Maybe NoSQL would suffice for some words and key-value data.

I would like to connect the web and a chrome extension to that backend. I assume that chrome extensions are made in JavaScript and I would use either Vue.js, AngularJS, or React on the web. The web would be quite simple, some flashcards, statistics, and so on ... I don't know which framework would be ideal, I've never done it, I'll be basically learning it. Ideally, also where you need as little CSS as possible.

With that backend, I have a dilemma as to which framework to use. Basically, it will be such a new for me, I just played with Flask a little bit, but It doesn't matter. Basically, everything runs on JS except the Android app. So is it advantageous to choose Node.js on the backend? I have no experience with this, is it an advantage when everything runs in almost one language? I also thought about Flask / Django, but I also quite like Node.js since it's in JS. But I'm open to all the possibilities of .NET, Spring .... What would be your choice?

To summarize: Android App - Native app in Kotlin Chrome Extension - JavaScript (I don't know if it can be done in anything else) Web - Vue, Angular or React and that's JavaScript Database - SQL / NoSQL? - I don't know which is more suitable, or some specific types Backend - the dilemma of what language and framework to use

I'll write everything myself, it's a project for school, but I want to move it to a higher level and release it. If it doesn't work out, at least I'll learn something. Thank you for the answers.

See more
Semih Akbas
Software Engineering Manager · | 5 upvotes · 44.2K views

Hi,

We are planning to develop a brand new UX for an already existing desktop software. The previous version is developed on C#.NET with Winforms & WPF. Our plan is to use JavaScript/HTML5 based frontend technologies for the new software. For some components, we are highly dependent on .NET/ .NET Core because the JS-based versions are not mature enough.

What would you choose for a desktop-based Engineering Software that supports multi-OS and has rich UI capabilities considering the .NET dependencies?

Thanks in advance,

Semih

See more

Blog Posts

Git.NETCloudBees+3
6
1062

.NET's Features

  • Multiple languages: You can write .NET apps in C#, F#, or Visual Basic.
  • Cross Platform: Whether you're working in C#, F#, or Visual Basic, your code will run natively on any compatible OS.
  • Consistent API & Libraries: To extend functionality, Microsoft and others maintain a healthy package ecosystem built on .NET Standard.
  • Application models for web, mobile, games and more: You can build many types of apps with .NET. Some are cross-platform, and some target a specific OS or .NET implementation.
  • Choose your tools: The Visual Studio product family provides a great .NET development experience on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Or if you prefer, there are .NET command line tools and plugins.

.NET Alternatives & Comparisons

What are some alternatives to .NET?
ASP.NET
.NET is a developer platform made up of tools, programming languages, and libraries for building many different types of applications.
Java
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!
Python
Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.
PHP
Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.
JavaScript
JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.
See all alternatives

.NET's Followers
5606 developers follow .NET to keep up with related blogs and decisions.