.NET (formerly .NET Core, .NET Framework) is Microsoft's cross-platform development framework. .NET 8 (current LTS) provides: ASP.NET Core for high-performance web APIs, Blazor for interactive web UIs (server-side and WebAssembly), Entity Framework Core for database access, and native integration with Azure services. C# is the primary language — strongly typed, modern, and well-suited for enterprise applications.
Enterprise .NET requires: clean architecture patterns (CQRS, mediator, repository), dependency injection, async/await for IO-bound operations, EF Core optimization (avoiding N+1 queries, using projections), security (ASP.NET Identity, Entra ID integration), and containerized deployment to Azure App Service or AKS.