Microsoft Celebrates 20 Years of .NET

20 years ago today, Microsoft launched the first version of .NET alongside Visual Studio .NET, kicking off the .NET era.

“Today, over five million developers use .NET and this is a celebration of all of you,” .NET marketing director Beth Massi writes. “It’s amazing that a 20-year-old platform has been the most loved framework by developers for three years in a row now – 2019, 2020, 2021, according to Stack Overflow’s developer survey.”

.NET was born as a proprietary, Windows-only software platform, but its current success can be tied to a decision a decade ago to reverse course and make it open-source and cross-platform. Today, .NET 6 is available across multiple platforms and it supports numerous frameworks for creating apps and services of all kinds.

Tied to the anniversary, Microsoft also revealed that .NET 7 Preview 1 will be released this week, with .NET MAUI, a cross-platform framework, expected by mid-year.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of .NET, Microsoft is hosting a variety of online events, starting with a celebration broadcast featuring Scott Hunter, Scott Hanselman, and others. You can learn more at the .NET website.