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What is the release cadence and Long-Term Support (LTS) model for modern .NET, and how does it differ from Framework's release history?
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Modern .NET ships a new major version annually every November; even-numbered versions (6, 8, 10...) are Long-Term Support releases supported for 3 years, while odd-numbered versions (7, 9...) are Standard Term Support, supported for 18 months, aimed at developers wanting the newest features sooner. .NET Framework, by contrast, had an irregular, much slower release cadence historically (years between major versions) and now receives no new versions at all, only patches to 4.8.x.
// LTS: .NET 6 (Nov 2021), .NET 8 (Nov 2023), .NET 10 (Nov 2025) -- 3 years support each
// STS: .NET 7 (Nov 2022), .NET 9 (Nov 2024) -- 18 months support eachReal-world example An enterprise with strict change-management policies always targets even-numbered LTS releases (.NET 8, then .NET 10) for production systems, skipping odd-numbered STS releases to minimize the frequency of mandatory upgrades.