When a developer faces the necessity of creating a web application using Microsoft.Net, he/she needs to choose which .Net framework to choose. Then the question arises: which one is the best one?
In this article a general outline of best ASP.Net Web Application Frameworks is given with the focus on their positive sides. Let’s start.
ASP.NET MVC
ASP.NET MVC is a part of the ASP.NET Web application framework. It is one of the two different programming models you can use to create ASP.NET Web applications, the other being ASP.NET Web Forms.
ASP.NET MVC brings the power of this development paradigm to ASP.NET development, allowing you to use your .NET development skills to create MVC applications.
It gives you total control over your HTML Markup as well as enables rich AJAX and jQuery integration. It also allows you to create SEO-friendly URLs for your site and makes Test Driven Development (TDD) easy. Besides, it enables a perfect and clean separation of bugs and concerns, helps in creating and building dynamic websites and web application that are rich in user interface.
DotNetNuke
DotNetNuke is a free, open source and easy to use application that is particularly based on web content management system along with web application framework which comes and is working perfectly with Microsoft .NET platform.
DotNetNuke is developed on the powerful Microsoft .NET platform – Windows server, IIS, SQL Server 2000, and ASP.NET (VB and C#). It can run on almost any database server, as long as someone has created the necessary provider (third-party providers include Oracle and mySQL). The flexible technical requirements make it possible to install and evaluate DotNetNuke on almost any computer.
DotNetNuke is offered under a nonrestrictive BSD License, a standard open source license that allows for full usage in both commercial and noncommercial environments. The BSD, well-documented ASP.NET source code, an active developer community, and a modular architecture make it possible to customize DotNetNuke and leverage it as a mature Web Application Framework. For end users, all DotNetNuke requires is a Web browser and an Internet connection.
OpenRasta
OpenRasta is an open source development framework targeting the Microsoft .NET platform for building web-based applications and services. OpenRasta framework has been released under Open-Source MIT License which mainly focus on various HTTP methods as well as on development of available resources. With the help of this, user can now create user friendly Web Interface by its web application framework.
OpenRasta however does have many MVC features and can serve as a full-fledge web application framework.
OpenRasta’s strengths lie in it’s comprehensiveness, wide range of features, active development and support community plus good documentation. OpenRasta’s weaknesses are similar to other frameworks in that is not as approachable as Web Forms and is intended for experienced developers. Hosting of an application built on OpenRasta is available through ASP.NET, in-memory, in-process through Windows’ HTTP APIs, or through any other environment able to receive HTTP requests, as the framework itself has no dependency on ASP.NET.
MonoRail
MonoRail is an Asp.net MVC based web application framework which has been inspired and designed from Action Pack. This tool offers completely different approach towards development of application towards standard WebForms way of development.
It also enforces handling application flow, separation of concerns, troubleshooting, model representation as well as viewing the application from the presentation logic point of view. This also means that your will have to write less code and result would be more maintainable application.
CSLA.net
CSLA.net is an Asp.net MVC based web application framework that is particularly used for development purpose. It allows you to design and develop applications for various kind of services like for Windows, Web, service-oriented and also for work-flow applications. One of the best advantage of using this tool is that it reduces the cost of developing, building as well as maintaining applications.
It performs various action of collecting data and storing them into the database application along worth creating user friendly interface. This is one of the most widely used framework which allows developers to use the power of object oriented design which will result out in developing powerful web applications.
Thanks for your attention 🙂 Hopefully, this article was informative and useful for anyone who read it. And do you have any comments? Looking forward to hear your opinion on best ASP.NET Web Application Frameworks!

Anna Kozik
Business Development Manager
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Sharp Architecture looks very good.
It is actually the initial solution to start with.
Links:
https://github.com/sharparchitecture/sharp-architecture/wiki
http://sharparchitecture.net (sometimes not opened for some reasons)
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