Overview

With Sitefinity 13.0 release, we also introduce a Community Technology Preview of Sitefinity .NET Core Renderer. This is the first step of our long-term project of migrating Sitefinity to the .NET Core framework. In this version we would like to give a chance to preview the progress and where we are heading to. 

With this preview version of Sitefinity .NET Core Renderer, we would like to give you the change to follow our progress and to give you vision of where we are headed.

This CTP release is intended to give the opportunity to test and evaluate our new setup. We also want to introduce you to the major features and changes. Such major changes include:

• Three-tier architecture
• New way of rendering
• New page editor and new widgets
• New widget development

.NET Core is an emerging, robust, and feature-rich framework that provides features to develop super-fast APIs for web apps.

It is an open-source, cross-platform framework, developed both by Microsoft and its community. It is a complete reform of ASP.NET that combines MVC structure and Web API into a single framework.

Some of the major changes include:

• Cross-platform ASP.NET apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux
• Robust performance 
• Modern tools to simplify development
• Open-source framework
• Faster compilation, async operations

• Can I use my existing website with .NET Core? 
  Yes, the .NET Core solution does not impact the existing functionality of your web site. You can use Sitefinity .NET Core Renderer simultaneously with your existing website. 
  
• Can I use the new Page editor without .NET Core? 
  Currently, no. 
  In the future, we plan to have a migration pattern that will convert existing WebForms and MVC pages to the new rendering engine. 
  
• Can I use the old page editor with new .NET Core pages? 
  No and there are no plans for it. 
• Can I use my existing widgets with the new Page editor?  
  No 
  
• I have a new project, should I start implementing it with .NET Core or I can safely work with the old one? What is the timeframe? 
  Sitefinity .NET Core Renderer is still in Community Technology Preview. If the two OOB widgets serve your needs, you are free to start developing with .NET Core. Although, we plan to elaborate it, we will not cease to support the standard .NET framework and the two-tier Sitefinity CMS architecture. 
  
• Do you have any plans to support migration of existing widgets?  
  Yes, we will have guidelines for migration of widgets.