Introduction to ASP.NET Core

Shailendra Chauhan

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13 Aug 2022

Beginner

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ASP.NET Core is a light-weight, open-source and cross-platform unified framework for developing web UI and web APIs. ASP.NET Core is a complete redesign of existing ASP.NET 4.x, with architectural changes that make it leaner, modular and high-performance framework.

Evolution of ASP.NET Core

Features of ASP.NET Core

Open-source
Cross-platform framework which runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
Runs on the top of .NET Core or full .NET Framework having version 4.6+.
A unified framework for building web UI and web APIs.
Built-in dependency injection.
New light-weight and modular HTTP request pipeline.
Ships entirely as NuGet packages.
Side-by-side versioning when targeting .NET Core.
Built-in supports for SPA using client-side frameworks like Angular, React, Vue etc.
Supports IIS, Nginx, Apache, Docker, or self-host deployment.

ASP.NET Core 2.1 Architecture

ASP.NET Core Version History

Version

Release Date

ASP.NET Core 2.1

May 2018

ASP.NET Core 2.0

August 2017

ASP.NET Core 1.1

November 2016

ASP.NET Core 1.0

June 2016

ASP.NET Core Performance Benchmarks

ASP.NET Core is the fastest framework which can serve 2300% more requests per second as compared to ASP.NET 4.6. It's around 20 times faster than Node.js.

ASP.NET Core Anatomy

In ASP.NET Core everything starts with Program.cs, Main Method. ASP.NET Core apps require a startup class which serves as an alternative to Global.asax in ASP.NET 4.x. It uses a cross-platform Kestrel web server to serve the request and response. Here, IIS/Apache Tomcat/Nginx work as a delegation web server, and used to delegate the incoming request to the internal Kestrel web server.

What ASP.NET Core doesn't have :

Global.asax
Web.Config
Modules and Handlers
Typical ASP.NET page life-cycle

What do you think?

I hope you will enjoy the ASP.NET Core. I would like to have feedback from my blog readers. Your valuable feedback, question, or comments about this article are always welcome.