Many businesses keep maintaining outdated .NET applications. This leads to limited effectiveness, security issues, and a damaged user experience. Legacy systems make it harder to scale and compete in this rapidly changing digital world.
.NET 9 is the latest .NET version developed by Microsoft to address these challenges. The new version provides better security, improved performance and enhanced cross-platform capabilities. Thus, .NET 9 helps modernize the applications and future-proof your operations. Let’s explore what’s new in .NET 9.
.NET 9 Release Date
.NET 9 was released on November 12, 2024. The end of support is planned on May 12, 2026.
What is .NET 9?
.NET 9 is the latest .NET version of Microsoft’s development platform. It’s now available as a Standard Term Support (STS) version. .NET allows developers to build applications for various environments, such as web, mobile, desktop and cloud.
If compared to .NET 8, the new version makes the development process faster by improving coding practices. It brings enhancements in memory consumption, AI integration, security, cloud-native apps, and more.
What’s New in .NET 9?
.NET 9 is different from its predecessors, .NET 6 and .NET 7. It offers new features. Firstly, it has enhanced performance across applications, expanded support for cloud-native development, and new language features in C# 12 that simplify coding.
Secondly, .NET 9 offers better integration with modern frameworks and tools. This makes it more adaptable to changing technology trends.
Thirdly, .NET 9 provides more efficient memory usage and faster runtime execution. It also offers broader cross-platform capabilities. These improvements show why businesses choose to upgrade .NET app versions. They aim to take advantage of the latest features.
Furthermore, the .NET 9 version introduces more robust features for modern app development. As a result, developers can build faster, scalable, and more secure applications with less effort.
.NET Runtime
.NET Runtime is the engine that runs .NET applications. It is a core component of the ecosystem for executing code, managing memory, and handling garbage collection. Overall, it ensures the application’s performance and reliability.
As a result of optimization, .NET 9 allows applications to run faster and more efficiently. It improves the developer experience by simplifying workflows, particularly with the new installation via SDK.
.NET Libraries
.NET 9 libraries received a series of improvements in performance and security. These updates include JSON serialization, LINQ, cryptography, logging, and networking. For example, the System.Text.Json library now supports record types and immutable structures. Before they required extra support.
Furthermore, Microsoft removed BinaryFormatter because of security risks. Now, developers should use alternatives like System.Text.Json, XmlSerializer, or specialized libraries.
Another key improvement is that LINQ received the new TryGetNomEnumeratedCount feature. It reduces the processing time for data-heavy operations.
Microsoft added support for new algorithms like KMAC and ChaCha20-Poly1305. This provides fast and secure encryption. This is essential for modern applications, especially IoT and mobile, that need fast encryption.
These changes aimed to meet the evolving demands of today’s software development process. They enable developers to build faster, more secure, and scalable applications.
.NET SDK
The .NET 9 SDK introduces features for streamlined development workflows and enhanced security and performance. What’s new?
- Workload sets. Workload sets simplify the management of optional tools and features, such as Xamarin or MAUI. This ensures faster setup and reduced overhead in managing SDK extensions.
- Security audits in NuGet. NuGet now includes improved security audits to identify vulnerabilities in third-party dependencies. It helps developers to avoid implementing insecure code.
- MSBuild Improvements. It allows parallel test execution and provides new tools to detect and correct configuration issues. Also, it offers enhanced security with code protection during compilation.
AI-Focused Enhancements in .NET 9
Developers received new tools to build and deploy advanced AI models. New tensor types and expanded machine learning libraries enhance work with AI and machine learning.
The new Tensor and TensorPrimitives types simplify complex mathematical operations. They eliminate the need to rely on external libraries.
ML.NET introduces updates that broaden its usage for AI developers. It provides new tokenizers, improved ONNX model loading, and integrations with TorchSharp.
.NET Aspire 9
.NET Aspire 9 introduces tools for developing and managing distributed applications. It focuses on enhancing developer productivity and integration capabilities. Key updates include:
- Simplified installation: Faster and easier setup to decrease configuration time.
- Enhanced dashboard: Real-time insights for performance monitoring and issue resolution.
- Optimized telemetry: Advanced logging and diagnostics to improve decision-making and app performance.
- Containers: Support for long-running applications to ensure cloud-native scaling.
- Integrations: Smoother connections with external systems and cloud services.
- Azure container app customization: Enhanced Azure integration for better performance and cost control.
ASP.NET Core 9.0
ASP.NET Core 9.0 improves static asset delivery, capabilities for Blazor and SignalR, and minimal APIs.
The new MapStaticAssets function simplifies static file delivery in production. It automates best practices, such as compression, caching, and ETag usage.
Another key improvement is Blazor and .NET MAUI Hybrid solutions. They enable developers to create applications for Android, Mac, iOS, Windows, and Web with a shared UI.
.NET MAUI for .NET 9
.NET MAUI 9 enhances performance with new controls and features to support cross-platform application development.
.NET MAUI 9 updates minimum system requirements for iOS and Mac Catalyst. Applications built with this require iOS 12.2 or higher and Mac Catalyst 15.0 or higher. This ensures compatibility with the latest operating systems while still maintaining existing platforms.
Two new controls were added to expand developers’ abilities to work with .NET MAUI. HybridWebView control allows them to embed web content into native applications. And TitleBar for Windows enables developers to customize the title bar of applications.
New .NET MAUI 9 also received debugging enhancements, new templates, and framework modernization.
Minimal API Improvements in ASP.NET Core 9
ASP.NET Core 9 brings several updates to Minimal APIs which make them more effective for high-traffic environments. These updates improve performance, simplify error handling, and strengthen real-time communication between apps. This helps developers build modern and lightweight web applications that need to scale effectively and maintain real-time interactions.
Enhanced Security
.NET 9 introduces updates to enhance the security of sensitive data and improve development practices. HttpClientFactory now prevents the logging of sensitive header values by default. This ensures that sensitive data is not exposed in logs. As a result, the risk of data leaks is reduced and the overall security of applications is enhanced.
Critical Changes in .NET 9
.NET 9 brings essential updates that elevate performance, security, and developer productivity. Let’s overview the main ones:
- Enhancements to System.Text.Json simplify handling structured data.
- The outdated BinaryFormatter was fully removed because of security issues.
- LINQ works quicker and can check collection sizes efficiently.
- Regex received better performance with precompiled patterns.
- Logging has become faster and less prone to errors.
- New cryptographic algorithms like ChaCha20 and KMAC make apps more secure.
- Minimal APIs have new features for better error handling and automatic API documentation.
Migrating to .NET 9
Do you have a legacy .NET application? It might be running on the .NET version that is not supported by Microsoft. This can cause performance and scalability issues. Also, an outdated user interface might lead to a damaged user experience.
Consider migrating your application to the latest versions of .NET. It has improved scalability, cross-platform support, security enhancements, and access to new features and APIs. This will improve your operations and save time and money, which influences the business growth.
Reach out to us to enhance your application and take it to the next level.