.NET Core

.NET Core is a cross-platform free and open-source managed software framework similar to .NET Framework. It consists of CoreCLR, a complete cross-platform runtime implementation of CLR, the virtual machine that manages the execution of .NET programs. CoreCLR comes with an improved just-in-time compiler, called RyuJIT. .NET Core also includes CoreFX, which is a partial fork of BCL. While .NET Core shares a subset of .NET Framework APIs, it comes with its own API that is not part of .NET Framework. Further, .NET Core contains CoreRT, the .NET Native runtime optimized to be integrated into AOT compiled native binaries. A variant of the .NET Core library is utilized for UWP. .NET Core's command-line interface offers an execution entry point for operating systems and provides developer services like compilation and package management.

.NET Core supports four cross-platform scenarios: ASP.NET Core web apps, command-line apps, libraries, and Universal Windows Platform apps. It does not implement Windows Forms or WPF which render the standard GUI for desktop software on Windows. .NET Core is also modular, meaning that instead of assemblies, developers deal with NuGet packages.