Which .NET frameworks versions does ASP.NET Core on .NET Framework (CLR) support

Question

ASP.NET Core on .NET Core is cross-platform ASP.NET. You can run an application written for .NET Core on Windows, Linux, and Mac. The server doesn't need the .NET framework installed.

However ASP.NET Core on .NET Framework (CLR) does require .net framework installed on your web server.

If I create a new ASP.NET Core on .NET Framework (CLR) template the default framework used is .NET 4.52

In the project.json

"frameworks": {
   "net452": { }
 },

If I change this value to later or earlier e.g.

"frameworks": {
   "net451": { }
 },

The project will support that version.

What range of versions does ASP.NET Core on .NET Framework (CLR) projects support?

Answer 1

That depends highly on what you need and which packages you import.

Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc for example depends on .NETStandard 1.6 or .NETFramework 4.5.1. .NETStandard 1.6 is included in .NET Framework 4.6.3. So the lowest framework version that can run MVC is 4.5.1.

The packages have diffrent requirements, for example Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting only requires .NETStandard 1.3 which is supported by framework 4.6.

In general though, ASP.NET Core is built for the .NET Standard, and the lowest .NETStandard version that is supported by a .NET Framework version is 1.1 (with framework 4.5). I’m not aware of any ASP.NET Core package that only requires 1.1, so I think it’s a safe bet that you need at least 4.5.1 to run ASP.NET Core.

Every package has that alternate dependency on 4.5.1, so you can run the full system against that. You definitely cannot run it on earlier versions than 4.5 though.