Microsoft began developing .NET Framework in the late 1990s as part of the .NET strategy. By late 2001, the first beta versions of .NET 1.0 were released.
.NET Framework1.0 was released on 13 February 2002.
Since the first version, Microsoft has released nine more upgrades for .NET Framework, seven of which have been released along with a new version of Visual Studio. Two of these upgrades, .NET Framework 2.0 and 4.0, have upgraded Common Language Runtime (CLR). New versions of .NET Framework replace older versions when the CLR version is the same.
Version
number |
CLR
version |
Release
date |
Support
ended |
Development tool |
| 1.0 |
1.0 |
2002-02-13 |
2009-07-14 |
Visual Studio .NET |
| 1.0 SP1 |
↑ |
2002-03-19 |
↑ |
|
| 1.0 SP2 |
↑ |
2002-08-07 |
↑ |
|
| 1.0 SP3 |
↑ |
2004-08-30 |
↑ |
|
| 1.1 |
1.1 |
2003-04-03 |
2013-10-08 |
Visual Studio .NET 2003 |
| 1.1 SP1 |
↑ |
2004-08-30 |
↑ |
|
| 2.0 |
2.0 |
2005-11-07 |
2011-07-12 |
Visual Studio 2005 |
| 2.0 SP1 |
↑ |
2007-11-19 |
↑ |
|
| 2.0 SP2 |
↑ |
2008-08-11 |
↑ |
|
| 3.0 |
2.0 |
2006-11-06 |
2011-07-12 |
Expression Blend |
| 3.0 SP1 |
↑ |
2007-11-19 |
↑ |
|
| 3.0 SP2 |
↑ |
2008-08-11 |
↑ |
|
| 3.5 |
2.0 |
2007-11-19 |
2028-10-10 |
Visual Studio 2008 |
| 3.5 SP1 |
↑ |
2008-08-11 |
↑ |
|
| 4.0 |
4 |
2010-04-12 |
2016-01-12 |
Visual Studio 2010 |
| 4.5 |
4 |
2012-08-15 |
2016-01-12 |
Visual Studio 2012 |
| 4.5.1 |
4 |
2013-10-17 |
2016-01-12 |
Visual Studio 2013 |
| 4.5.2 |
4 |
2014-05-05 |
Same as
parent OS |
Visual Studio 2015 |
| 4.6 |
4 |
2015-07-20 |
Visual Studio 2015 |
| 4.6.1 |
4 |
2015-11-30 |
Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 |
| 4.6.2 |
4 |
2016-08-02 |
Visual Studio 2017 15.0 |
| 4.7 |
4 |
2017-04-05 |
Visual Studio 2017 15.1 |
| 4.7.1 |
4 |
2017-10-17 |
Visual Studio 2017 15.5 |
| 4.7.2 |
4 |
2018-04-30 |
Visual Studio 2017 15.8 |
| 4.8 |
4 |
2019-04-18 |
Visual Studio 2019 16.3 |
|
.NET Framework 4.8 will be the LAST major release of the Full Framework. That branch of the .NET development tree will thereafter be considered legacy. There will be periodic critical security, reliability, and bug-fix updates as needed for the next few years. But that’s it – no new features, efficiencies, or improvements.
|
.NET Framework component stack
|
On November 12, 2014, Microsoft announced .NET Core, in an effort to include cross-platform support for .NET. It is a cross-platform successor to .NET Framework.
The .NET Core is the evolution of Microsoft’s .NET technology into a modular, cross platform, open source and cloud ready platform, which runs on Windows, Mac, Android, IoT and Linux.
- .NET Core 1.0, announced on November 12, 2014, was released on June 27, 2016, along with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, which enables .NET Core development.
- .NET Core 2.0 was released on August 14, 2017, along with Visual Studio 2017 15.3, ASP.NET Core 2.0, and Entity Framework Core 2.0.
- .NET Core 3 was announced on May 7, 2019, at Microsoft Build. Version 3.0.0 was released September 23 2019. With .NET Core 3 the framework will get support for development of desktop application software, artificial intelligence/machine learning and IoT apps.
- The next release after .NET Core 3.0 will be .NET 5. The .NET Framework will be deprecated, and .NET 5 will be the only .NET going forward – hence the removal of the "Core" branding and skipping of version 4 to avoid confusion with the .NET Framework 4.x.
| Version |
Release date |
Released with |
Latest update |
Latest update date |
| .NET Core 1.0 |
2016-06-27 |
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 |
1.0.16 |
2019-05-14 |
| .NET Core 1.1 |
2016-11-16 |
Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.0 |
1.1.13 |
2019-05-14 |
| .NET Core 2.0 |
2017-08-14 |
Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.3 |
2.0.9 |
2018-07-10 |
| .NET Core 2.1 |
2018-05-30 |
Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.7 |
2.1.13 |
2019-09-10 |
| .NET Core 2.2 |
2018-12-04 |
Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.9 |
2.2.7 |
2019-09-10 |
| .NET Core 3.0 |
2019-09-23 |
Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.3 |
3.0.0 |
2019-09-23 |
| .NET Core 3.1 |
2019-12 (projected) |
|
.NET Core 3.1.0 Preview 3 |
|
| .NET 5 |
2020-11 (projected) |
|
|
|
.NET Core supports four cross-platform scenarios:
- ASP.NET Core web apps
- command-line apps
- Libraries
- Universal Windows Platform apps
- Windows Forms or Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Windows apps (.Net Core 3.0)
|