# ASP.NET

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/asp-net/

36 people recommended ASP.NET in Hacker News comments, 4 had mixed feelings and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 12 months, in 32 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free Microsoft web framework for C# praised for maturity, built-in features and scalability; critics find it heavy on ceremony.

Summary written by Claude from 50 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 49 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Mature, stable and well designed (5 comments in the sample): "is a solid, fast, secure, and mature technology, and it's only getting better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46314482)) "The mature frameworks (e.g. ASP.NET with razor pages) are great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982278)) "much more mature, complete, and with one of the best ORMs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46846344))
- Batteries included, few dependencies (4 comments in the sample): "You barely need any dependencies other than aspnetcore and efcore for most applications and your AI knows them well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106223)) "Modern ASP.NET handles so much for you it's a lot like Rails in that regard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45904950)) "being able to easily justify the use of out of the box ASP.NET Core" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47501263))
- Strong ecosystem and EF Core (2 comments in the sample): "great ecosystem (orleans, ef core, aspire, asp.net core, blazor, signalr, etc" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46542702)) "AspNetCore startup code, LINQ and EF are good examples." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48371347))
- Well-known patterns AI agents follow (1 comment in the sample): "allow my agent to easily follow decades of best practiced patterns" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50139043))

## What people warn about

- Confusing history and buzzwords (3 comments in the sample): "Asp.net (framework which were sold as "web for backed developers") looked like evil joke." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285951)) "ASP.NET has the dubious honor of featuring two generations of MS buzzwords" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46900442)) "ASP manages to be confusing quite often." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47519283))
- Magic and ceremony hide behavior (2 comments in the sample): "You had to change how your web app behaved completely if you relied on their magic session" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052721)) "to use that stuff a lot of ceremony is baked in" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45900829))

## Other web frameworks people recommend

- [Ruby on Rails](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ruby-on-rails/): 227 recommend, 75 mixed, 129 criticize
- [Django](https://hackerapproved.com/p/django/): 200 recommend, 48 mixed, 82 criticize
- [Phoenix Framework](https://hackerapproved.com/p/phoenix/): 66 recommend, 14 mixed, 10 criticize
- [Laravel](https://hackerapproved.com/p/laravel/): 57 recommend, 9 mixed, 22 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "ASP.NET", https://hackerapproved.com/p/asp-net/ (36 recommend, 4 mixed, 10 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.