.NET 7 Released: What Enterprise Teams Need to Know

.NET 7 is now Generally Available. While .NET 6 was an LTS (Long-Term Support) release, .NET 7 is an STS (Standard-Term Support) release with 18 months of support. This guide covers the key features relevant to enterprise development: performance improvements, Native AOT, rate limiting, and optimal upgrade strategies for existing .NET 6 applications.

Should You Upgrade?

Decision framework:

Performance Highlights

The performance team made over 1,000 PRs. Highlights:

• JSON serialization: 30% faster with required properties
• LINQ: Min/Max/Average optimized for arrays
• Regex: Source-generated regex is 10x faster
• GC: Reduced pause times by up to 60%

Native AOT in Practice

<PropertyGroup>
  <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>
</PropertyGroup>

Results for a minimal API:

• Binary size: 12 MB (self-contained: 80 MB)
• Cold start: 8 ms (JIT: 200 ms)
• Memory: 15 MB RSS (JIT: 60 MB)

Constraints: No reflection, no dynamic, limited EF Core support.

Built-in Rate Limiting

builder.Services.AddRateLimiter(options =>
{
    options.AddFixedWindowLimiter("api", limiterOptions =>
    {
        limiterOptions.PermitLimit = 100;
        limiterOptions.Window = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1);
    });
});

app.UseRateLimiter();
app.MapGet("/api/resource", () => "OK").RequireRateLimiting("api");

Upgrade Path

<!-- Change target framework -->
<TargetFramework>net7.0</TargetFramework>

<!-- Update all Microsoft.* packages to 7.x -->

dotnet tool update -g dotnet-outdated
dotnet outdated -u

Key Takeaways

• .NET 7 is STS (18 months support) – plan for .NET 8 LTS
• Significant performance improvements justify upgrade for critical apps
• Native AOT is production-ready for specific scenarios
• Built-in rate limiting eliminates third-party dependencies
• Upgrade path from .NET 6 is straightforward