.NET Core 1.0, announced on November 12, 2014,[5] was released on June 27, 2016,[6] along with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, which enables .NET Core development.[7] .NET Core 1.0.4 and .NET Core 1.1.1 were released along with .NET Core Tools 1.0 and Visual Studio 2017 on March 7, 2017.[8]
.NET Core 2.0 was released on August 14, 2017, along with Visual Studio 2017 15.3, ASP.NET Core 2.0, and Entity Framework Core 2.0.[9] .NET Core 2.1 was released on May 30, 2018.[10] NET Core 2.2 was released on December 4, 2018.[11]
.NET Core 3 was announced on May 7, 2019, at Microsoft Build. Version 3.0.0 was released on September 23, 2019.[12] With .NET Core 3, the framework supports development of desktop application software, artificial intelligence/machine learning and IoT apps.[13][failed verification]
The next release after .NET Core 3.1 is .NET 5. The .NET Framework will not receive any further major versions, and .NET 5 will be the only .NET meant for new applications going forward – hence the removal of the "Core" branding and skipping of version 4 to avoid confusion with the .NET Framework 4.x.[14] The first preview of .NET 5 was released on March 16, 2020.[15]