Ask HN: Why startups avoid using .NET as their primary back end framework? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why startups avoid using .NET as their primary back end framework?

16 pointsvlad_karukes20 comments

I've seen a ton of startups heavily relying on JavaScript and variations of it, some Ruby on Rails but very rare I've seen companies start off with .NET. Why

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Up until very recently it wasn't even possible to host a .NET backend without the rest of the MS stack (Windows Server, IIS), and that by itself made it a non-starter for most startups. It was also closed source and required very expensive licenses (Visual Studio cost thousands of dollars per developer per year).

Things have improved now with dotnet core and everything else, but it takes more than 2-3 years to gain acceptance and widespread use.

One thing that really sucked about using the original .NET was that even using something like Elastic Beanstalk on AWS, your costs were basically 4 times what .NET Core is, with all the downsides of managing a Windows server (shudder).

Core is a complete contrast. For a fairly boring CRUD web service, entity framework is a genuinely good O-R mapper and deploying .net core web services in a container is so easy it's literally childs play with the AWS toolkit installed in visual studio.

I get it that a lot of developers just don't think it's cool enough and that it carries a lot of the same dependency hell as Node (well, it's better than Node for that) but for my use case it's trouble free and allows a single person shop to quickly update and deploy an entire backend system without having to manage servers or licenses or anything. Microsoft do get money out of me via the Visual Studio subscription, but I needed that for other reasons so I figure it's a sunk cost.

I recently cancelled my VS subscription, just couldn't see any reason not to just use the community edition.

Access to licences for things like windows server and sql server. I run an old hp ML350 as a dev workstation, has windows server and sql server on it for some side hustle consulting work.

You can't use the licenses for production systems but they sure are handy for spinning up replicas of on premises customer setups.

SQL server dev is free now and runs on linux.

Yes that's true but a few of the people I deal with are using SSIS or report server and those don't run on Linux. For those customers, being able to do some testing on a replica of their setup is very handy, so that's what I pay the visual studio license for.

Previously, it was also tightly integrated with MSSQL. I like MSSQL but it becomes prohibitively expensive once you reach a certain size.

On the side I've been building a job listing site for tech jobs in Australia with .NET core, currently it's on a $5/m Vultr instance with a postgres DB. This wouldn't have been possible to do a few years back: https://www.headhunted.com.au

Yeah, the perception of .NET-centered companies around my area has typically been that of a large, non-technology oriented enterprise which noticed they are behind around 10 years ago, and since they were using Microsoft for everything, they went for .NET (and Azure). This is to a degree also reflected in who you can hire with .NET experience.

Because Microsoft products aren't "cool" (and some come with all kinds of EULAs that FOSS doesn't). Personally, I would never even consider running a Windows server.

Makes sense. On the other hand, WCF was hands down one of the best and reliable frameworks out there. And if no startups are using Microsoft, how do they plan to survive in the future? Eventually enterprises will evolve as well, so they probably need to become "cool" again.

Why is .NET required for survival? There seem to be many large companies that have enterprise clients and yet have no .NET code...

The reason is most likely that software is rarely delivered by installable binary. SaaS over the network as popularized by Salesforce is the prevailing method now. Makes it so much easier to deliver updated code.

I also suspect WASM to become more widely used than .NET at startups and more generally in web based applications.

When people say something from MS is “the best and reliable” it can only mean 2 things: they are MS sales people or they just didn’t know any better yet.

Hey, I'm on board with wiping out Microsoft as the next guy, but you might be giving them too much crap here.

I believe OP actually meant the development platform is very stable and keeps you productive and helps you deliver products, which is what startups should be about. Which from what I've seen is mostly true especially compared to something like JS frameworks.

That said, I still believe the ridiculous levels of vendor lock-in are not worth it.

Of course im being sarcastic. They do have great products from time to time.

But really who in clear mind would prefer to become a slave of MS ecosystem in webdev area in 21 century?

Only people who doesn’t know how to work with other platforms (or who got fooled by marketing/sales).

> who in clear mind would prefer to become a slave of MS ecosystem in webdev area in 21 century?

What's wrong with using .NET Core, which is open source and cross platform. Can't I create a ASP.NET Core application with Angular for front-end and deploy it in AWS as a Docker container. You are not necessarily becoming too dependent on the MS ecosystem.

You don't need Windows Server to run .NET.

Traditionally (ASP) .NET was tightly integrated with the Microsoft stack of Windows Server, IIS and MSSQL. I'm not sure if this was really a must, but from what colleagues told me it was a huge PITA if you didn't use those solutions.

This has changed since with the arrival of (ASP) .NET core which is cross platform and a very open framework. But with many well established Node.js/RoR/Java solutions in startups and enterprises alike, I believe it'll need some time to gain traction.

I guess it’s because devs learn unix/linux at university or by their own. I never seen anybody setting up a Windows machine, we are all into linux. I personally know nothing about Windows servers.

Path of least resistance. Nice text editor, command window, Bob's your uncle. Forcing people on to Windows is another issue. Although Microsoft have now woken up to this fact. Microsoft love us Linux users now don't you know :-)

Because no reasonable people would put their eggs in “mustdie” basket (if you remember this meme from 90-s)

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