Overview
Characteristics of .NET Core
The following are the major characteristics of .NET Core −
Open source
- .NET Core is an open source implementation, using MIT and Apache 2 licenses.
- .NET Core is a .NET Foundation project and is available on GitHub.
- As an open source project, it promotes a more transparent development process and promotes an active and engaged community.
Cross-platform
- Application implemented in .NET Core can be run and its code can be reused regardless of your platform target.
- It currently supports three main operating systems (OS)
- Windows
- Linux
- MacOS
- The supported Operating Systems (OS), CPUs and application scenarios will grow over time, provided by Microsoft, other companies, and individuals.
Flexible deployment
- There can be two types of deployments for .NET Core applications −
- Framework-dependent deployment
- Self-contained deployment
- With framework-dependent deployment, your app depends on a system-wide version of .NET Core on which your app and third-party dependencies are installed.
- With self-contained deployment, the .NET Core version used to build your application is also deployed along with your app and third-party dependencies and can run side-by-side with other versions.
Command-line tools
- All product scenarios can be exercised at the command-line.
Compatible
- .NET Core is compatible with .NET Framework, Xamarin and Mono, via the .NET Standard Library
Modular
- .NET Core is released through NuGet in smaller assembly packages.
- .NET Framework is one large assembly that contains most of the core functionalities.
- .NET Core is made available as smaller feature-centric packages.