.NET 8, the planned next version of Microsoft’s software development platform, has moved to a second and final release candidate (RC) stage. General availability is due in November.
Unveiled October 10, .NET 8 RC 2 can be downloaded from the Microsoft .NET website for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The successor to .NET 7, which was released in November 2022, .NET 8 will be supported for three years.
Enhancements in RC 2 include improved performance and UI fixes for the .NET MAUI (Multi-platform App UI) framework and updates to Entity Framework. With .NET 8, developers will see a variety of improvements ranging from AOT (ahead-of-time) compilation and source generation to JSON serialization and garbage collection enhancements.
