Get Started with .NET development on AWS
A quick tour of AWS resources for .NET developers
David Pallmann
Amazon Employee
Published May 6, 2025
Last Modified May 7, 2025
Welcome to AWS! You can develop, deploy, and modernize .NET applications at scale on AWS. AWS has tools, frameworks, and guidance resources specifically for .NET developers.
Develop with your favorite IDE. AWS provides toolkits for popular .NET IDEs that help create, debug, and deploy .NET applications on AWS. They include an AWS Explorer to view AWS services and deployment wizards.
- The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio makes it easier for developers to develop, debug, and deploy applications on AWS.
- The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code provides an integrated experience for developing and deploying serverless applications on AWS.
- The AWS Toolkit for Rider provides an integrated experience for developing and deploying serverless applications on AWS.
Your .NET applications can interact with AWS services such as database and messaging services through the AWS SDK for .NET. It simplifies the use of AWS services by providing a set of libraries that are consistent and familiar for .NET developers. In addition, there are .NET specific frameworks available:
- For serverless functions, create .NET Core serverless projects from VS or the dotnet CLI with AWS Lambda Blueprints, code serverless API functions naturally in C# with AWS Lambda Annotations for .NET, and test serverless functions locally with AWS Lambda Mock Tool for .NET.
- Write your Infrastructure-as-code in C# with AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK).
- Use .NET logging extensions for Amazon CloudWatch to integrate .NET logging frameworks (NLog, Apache log4net, ILogger, Serilog) to Amazon CloudWatch logs.
Use .NET CLI and PowerShell tools to manage your AWS services.
- Deploy .NET applications to AWS with guided assistance using the .NET deployment tool.
- Manage your AWS services from PowerShell wit AWS Tools for PowerShell.
- Create, manage, and deploy your AWS Lambda functions with AWS Lambda Tools for .NET CLI or AWS Lambda Tools for PowerShell.
Amazon Q Developer is your AI code assistant. You can code intelligently in your IDE, supercharge your CLI, chat about your code, and generate documentation.
Both traditional .NET Framework applications (Windows) and modern cross-platform .NET Core applications can run on AWS. In addition, AWS has products to help you modernize .NET Framework applications to .NET Core, which allows you to run on Linux and reduce costs. Use AWS .NET Modernization tools to modernize your .NET applications.
To choose the right AWS services for your use case with confidence, ask some key questions that will narrow the choices. Refer to AWS Services for .NET developers for top considerations by service type.
As new versions of .NET are released, you can track AWS support for the new runtimes with our suport guides.
Get guidance on architecting well on AWS at the AWS Architecture Center. Use the AWS Well-Architected framework, which has pillars for Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability.
For modern applications, understand AWS's perspective on cloud-native architecture, microservices, and event-driven architeture, along with related services, tools, and resources.
Learn how to integrate .NET Aspire with AWS for cloud-native development. AWS support for .NET Aspire shipped as part of .NET 9.
Find the developer information you need and keep up to date on new developments.
- Use community.aws as your developer hub to find AWS developer content.
- Follow the .NET on AWS blog and Microsoft Workloads on AWS blog for a steady stream of tutorials, how-to information, and .NET-related developments.
- Find reference information on AWS products at AWS Documentation.
- Get in-depth resources for .NET serverless functions at Serverlessland.
- Post questions at AWS re:Post, a community where you can collaborate with AWS subject matter experts and AWS employees to get answers to technical questions.
- Take courses and earn learning badges at AWS Skill Builder.
- Follow AWS on social media: @awsdevelopers on X.
Any opinions in this post are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.