When is ASP.NET Core 1.0 (ASP.NET 5 / vNext) scheduled for release?

Update for July 1, 2016

ASP.NET Core 1.0, Entity Framework 1.0, and .NET Core 1.0 were all released on June 27, 2016.

Announcing ASP.NET Core 1.0

Announcing Entity Framework Core 1.0

Announcing .NET Core 1.0

Update for January 19, 2016

ASP.NET 5 is now called ASP.NET Core 1.0.

.NET Core 5 is now .NET Core 1.0.

Entity Framework 7 is now Entity Framework Core 1.0 or EF Core 1.0 colloquially.

For more information see Scott Hanselman's blog about the change.

Update for July 2, 2015

In the ASP.NET Community Standup live meeting Damian Edwards discussed some updates to the plans for ASP.NET 5's release. You can read the main points and watch the recording on a recent team blog post.

This tentative plan was described:

Beta 6 - end of July 2015

Beta 7 - end of August 2015

Beta 8 - end of September 2015

Release Candidate - late fall 2015 - Damian warns that this could be completely inaccurate as it is 6 months into the future.

So, as with all schedules/plans, please take this as a plan, not specific dates.

Original post from December 19, 2014

We (Microsoft) generally don't give specific dates. However, I can say that ASP.NET 5 ("vNext") is being released as part of Visual Studio 2015, and so that means it's being released in 2015 (big surprise!). It is reasonably safe to assume a release in the early half of 2015.

As you correctly noted, the GitHub repos for ASP.NET 5 now specify the RC milestone, which indicates that our main focus right now is on stability, and that the feature set for the RTM release is largely there. There are still features and designs being finalized, and anyone can of course see those going on in the individual repos.

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According to Roadmap on GitHub:

ASP.NET Core 1.0 (Previously called ASP.NET 5) Schedule and Roadmap

Below is the schedule and roadmap for ASP.NET Core 1.0. Please note that these dates and feature plans are all subject to change. As with any project of this size it is difficult to predict exactly when things will land. Even so, we think it's important to be as open and transparent as possible about our plans so that our users can have the right expectations and create their plans accordingly.

Schedule

Milestone                     Release Date
Beta6                           27 Jul 2015    
Beta7                           24 Aug 2015   
Beta8                           21 Sep 2015   
RC1                             Nov 2015        
RC2 (Tools Preview 1) mid-May 2016
1.0.0                            late-June 2016

The November release candidate (RC1) will be a supported and production ready cross-platform release. Depending on feedback from RC1 we will ship additional release candidates as necessary.

Milestone Themes

Beta6 - Localization, Servicing, .NET 4.6 support, and more

In Beta6 we are working on supporting localization in the new request pipeline. We are also working to enable patching and servicing of the runtime including adding support for strong-naming assemblies. In Beta6 you will be able to target .NET 4.6 using the .NET Execution Environment (DNX). We will do work on response buffering and caching (via HTTP.SYS on Windows) and add distributed caching support via SQL Server.

Planned features: Runtime, MVC, Razor, Identity

Beta7 - Cross-platform

The primary focus for Beta7 will be to enable cross-platform development on .NET Core. This includes shipping the .NET Core based .NET Execution Environments for Mac and Linux, enabling the basic developer workflows and also setting up the acquisition story.

Planned features: Runtime, MVC, Razor, Identity

Beta8 - Feature complete!

Beta8 is the last major feature milestone planned before moving into a stabilization phase for RC1. We will work on enabling complete end-to-end experiences in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. We expect cross-platform .NET Core to be feature complete at this point.

Planned features: Runtime, MVC, Razor, Identity

RC1 - Stabilization

The focus for RC1 will be on polishing existing features, responding to customer feedback and improving performance and reliability. The goal is for RC1 to be a stable and production ready release.

RC2 - Move to .NET Core CLI and .NET Platform Standard

For RC2 we will move ASP.NET Core 1.0 to be based on the new cross-platform .NET Core command line toolchain.

Future Work

The following features unfortunately won't make it into the initial RTM release. We are tentatively planning on shipping them in the initial feature release after RTM, during Q3* of 2016:

Visual Basic support

SignalR 3

Web Pages 4

* References to yearly quarters (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) are calendar-based

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Update 3: The ASP.NET Core 1.0 (Previously called ASP.NET 5) roadmap is on github: https://github.com/aspnet/Home/wiki/Roadmap

Original

Visual Studio 2015 will released on 20 July 2015.

However according to Somasegar's blog on 29 Jun 2015: "ASP.NET 5 and EF 7 will be released separately at a later date."

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Updated Answer:

ASP.NET Core 1.0 was released on June 27 2016.

Getting started with .NET Core

If you use Visual Studio 2015 (Visual Studio Community is free!) you should get VS2015 Update 3 first then install the .NET Core Tools for Visual Studio.

If you don't want to use VS, consider using Visual Studio Code for free and install the C# extension from the marketplace along with the .NET Core SDK for Windows. Of course, if you're on Mac/Linux/Whatever, go over to http://dot.net.

If you want all the advanced and specific downloads for .NET or .NET Core, click here

Previous Answer: (Release Candidates)

Scott Hunter has blogged specific time-frames: for the release of ASP.NET Core

The Core Schedule .NET Core and ASP.NET Core 1.0 RC2 runtime and libraries will be available in mid-May. Tooling will be Preview 1 and bundled with this release. .NET Core and ASP.NET Core 1.0 RTM (release) runtime and libraries will be available by the end of June. Tooling will be Preview 2 and bundled with this release. We will continue to make changes and stabilize the tooling until it RTMs with Visual Studio “15”.

Previous Answer:

ASP.NET Core 1.0 (previously called ASP.NET 5) roadmap is on github but the dates in this roadmap have been missed over the past couple of months by a margin so one can't really trust it. Considering this, it makes sense they have removed fixed dates from the roadmap.

According to the current roadmap RC2 release is TBD. Release 1.0 says 2016.

So the question should really be? When is TBD? When is later in 2016?

Luckily the number of open issues per release can be viewed on github.

Take note: ASP.NET Core release versions needs to integrate with other related /dependent teams releases e.g. Entity Framework team. Each release will only be released once those teams have the equivalent release version ready.

I post links to each of these technologies milestones in github. This should give the most accurate indication of a release date.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/q2p31.png

https://i.stack.imgur.com/cJrIE.png

Based off the above progress, RC2 due date is listed as 29 April 2016 when they will have a build ready for testing

It will probably be another X weeks of testing but at least it's an indication when it will be ready.

Progress is updated daily.

Release 1.0 RTM progress can also be viewed on these links.

RTM milestone date seems to be 30 June although not all of the links have milestone dates. Based on how the RC2 dates have slipped, this date will probably change as well as they progress.

The ASP.NET Community Standup videos should also give a good indication on progress of releases where one can get updates from the horse's mouth, usually on a weekly basis.

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I don't see any confirmed release dates but if these new ASP.NET 5 features or being on the latest framework is important you can always download the Visual Studio 2015 preview and start using some of the new features today.

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ASP.NET 5 was RELEASE CANDIDATE as 11/18/2015. Which means from that point forward using those bits you can use it in production and receive support.

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