ASP.NET is an open-source server-side web application framework designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. It was developed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, web applications and web services.

ASP.NET is built on the Common Language Runtime (CLR), allowing programmers to write ASP.NET code using any supported .NET language. The ASP.NET SOAP extension framework allows ASP.NET components to process SOAP messages.

ASP.NET aims for performance benefits over other script-based technologies (including classic ASP) by compiling the server-side code the first time it is used to one or more DLL files on the Web server. These dll files or assemblies contain Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) for running within the common language runtime this provides a performance boost over pure scripted languages and is similar to the approach used by Python and not dissimilar to JavaServer Pages.

If you want to try ASP.NET, you can install Visual Web Developer Express using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer, which is a free tool that makes it simple to download, install, and service components of the Microsoft Web Platform. These components include Visual Web Developer Express, Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, and the .NET Framework. All of these are tools that you use to create ASP.NET Web applications. You can also use the Microsoft Web Platform Installer to install open-source ASP.NET and PHP Web applications.

Features:

• Bundling and Minification Feature
• Support for OpenID in OAuth Logins
• Enhanced support for asynchronous programming
• Support for web sockets
• Support for improved paging in ASP.NET 4.5 GridView control
• ASP.NET Web API
• Support for HTML5 form types