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Microsoft has released .NET 5.0, which is the next significant release in the .NET developer platform. Microsoft promised to unify the different .NET flavours across operating systems, various form factors, and the Web. .NET 5.0 would be key to achieving that promise.

Microsoft announced the general availability of .NET 5.0 during .NET Conf 2020 Virtual event.

What’s included in the .NET 5.0

Programming interfaces, new languages, routine features, and a variety of tools are some of the packs that developers will get from .NET 5. According to Microsoft, developers should use it to build back-end services and front-end Web.

.NET 5.0 includes F# 5, C# 9, and corresponding ASP.NET Core release. During the release, Microsoft encouraged developers to use updated APIs in .NET 5.0 to integrate with other tools such as Microsoft’s Power Platform no-code/ low-code platform. It also offers support for Windows Arm64 and performance improvements in single file applications; .NET libraries and Garbage Collector; and smaller container images.

.NET unification journey

The plans to achieve .NET unification were announced in 2019, with Microsoft promising that the release of .NET 5.0 would be its first key deliverable toward that unification. Earlier, Microsoft had released .NET Core 3.X. In May 2019, Microsoft promised to deliver a new key release of the unified .NET every November, henceforth, with alternating significant releases (which includes next year’s .NET 6.0) titled as Long-Term Servicing (LTS).

Currently, .NET 5.O software development kit doesn’t have the Windows Desktop components on Windows Arm64. However, Microsoft officials said that the company is hoping to include the Windows Desktop components for Windows Arm64 in a servicing update in the future.

For now, the ASP.NET Core, SDK, and console applications are supported on Windows Arm64. Developers can download .NET 5.0, for Linux, Windows, and macOS, for Arm32/64, and x86-64.