While we’ve covered .NET Core releases, cadence and support policies in previous blog posts, the information has been distributed across a couple of individual posts. With the .NET 5 release just around the corner, we thought this is a good time to bring all the information together into a single post as a refresher on these topics.

As we’ve covered previous posts, .NET Core releases have a very different model relative to .NET Framework so if you’re coming from .NET Framework application development and familiar with that, or just starting with .NET Core it is important to understand the release cadence, types, and support lifecycle for .NET Core so you can make the right choices for your situation.

Key Highlights

.NET Core ships major releases, minor releases, and servicing updates (patches). From a support perspective, there are 2 support “tracks” for .NET Core releases.

• The first track is “Current” releases – these .NET Core versions are supported for a period of 3 months after the next major or minor release ships.
• The second track is “Long Term Support” or LTS releases – these are supported for a minimum of 3 years, or 1 year after the next LTS release ships (whichever is longer).

.NET Core releases alternate between LTS and Current releases, so it is possible for an “LTS” release that shipped first (for example .NET Core 3.1) to be supported for longer than a “Current” release (for example .NET 5) that shipped later.

Servicing updates ship monthly for the most part and include both security and non-security (reliability, compatibility, and stability) fixes. .NET Core servicing releases are supported from the time they are released until the next servicing update is released. Servicing updates leverage runtime roll forward behavior, that is applications default to running on the latest installed runtime servicing update that is installed, so we take care to ensure a high degree of compatibility in servicing updates. When it comes to getting support for .NET Core, you have a choice between Microsoft assisted support and Community support based on your situation.

The rest of this post covers these areas in more detail:

• .NET Core Release Types – major releases, minor releases, servicing releases, and SDK feature bands
• .NET Core Lifecycle – modern lifecycle, Current releases, and Long Term Support (“LTS”) releases
• Getting support from Microsoft and the Community
• End of Support and Operating System support
• .NET Roadmap

#.net #.net core #lifecycle