Lifecycle guide for .Net and .Net Core from Microsoft

All releases, patches, maintenance and support periods at a glance

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📅 Last update on 2026-05-14

What is .Net and .Net Core?

Automate product release and end-of-life management

.NET (previously named .NET Core) is a free, cross-platform, open source developer platform for building many different types of applications..NET Core and .NET 5 refer to several technologies including the runtime, ASP.NET Core, and Entity Framework Core.

The entire lifecycle of .Net and .Net Core

The following figure shows you the visualised product life cycle of .Net and .Net Core. You can see all releases with the latest patch version, the long-term support characteristics (orange flag in the green circle, the periods for version provision, maintenance and support.

.Net and .Net Core (Microsoft) release, version and end-of-life information

Figure: Release, patch and end-of-life cycle of product .Net and .Net Core (Microsoft)

What is the .Net and .Net Core release strategy?

The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it's no longer supported. Customers can choose Long Term Support (LTS) releases or Current releases. The quality of all releases is the same. The only difference is the length of support. LTS releases get free support and patches for 3 years. Current releases get free support and patches for 15 months. Within a release's support lifecycle, systems must remain current on released patch updates.