Getting Started with .NET 8 on Windows Hosting Print

Overview

.NET 8 is a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, supported until November 2026. It offers significant performance improvements, enhanced security features, and new capabilities for web development.

Prerequisites

• Active hosting account with Plesk control panel access
• Visual Studio 2022 (17.8 or later) or VS Code with C# extension
• .NET 8 SDK installed on your development machine

Verifying .NET 8 Support

Our Windows hosting environment supports .NET 8. To verify the installed runtimes:

1. Log in to your Plesk control panel
2. Navigate to Websites & Domains
3. Select your domain and click Hosting & DNS tab
4. Click Hosting Settings
5. Under .NET Core Support, you can see available runtimes

Creating Your First .NET 8 Application

Create a new .NET 8 web application:

dotnet new webapp -n MyFirstApp -f net8.0
cd MyFirstApp
dotnet run

Key .NET 8 Features

• Native AOT: Ahead-of-time compilation for faster startup
• Improved Performance: Up to 20% faster than .NET 7
• Blazor United: New unified Blazor hosting model
• Minimal APIs: Enhanced with better parameter binding

Publishing Options

For Plesk Windows hosting, we recommend:

• Framework-Dependent Deployment (FDD): Smaller deployment size, uses server runtime
• Self-Contained Deployment (SCD): Includes runtime, larger but independent

Next Steps

• See "Deploying .NET 8 Applications via Plesk" for deployment instructions
• See "Configuring .NET 8 Application Settings in Plesk" for configuration options