C# (.NET) Community Chooses the Best Libraries of the Year: 2024 Results

Online Python Trainer for Beginners

Learn Python easily without overwhelming theory. Solve practical tasks with automatic checking, get hints in Russian, and write code directly in your browser — no installation required.

Start Course

C# (.NET) Community Chooses the Best Libraries of the Year: Full Overview of Winners

The annual voting in the .NET community has concluded, and we are pleased to present a list of the best C# libraries recognized by developers from around the world. This year, over 5,000 professionals participated in the survey, choosing favorites in various categories — from web frameworks to tools for working with artificial intelligence. We present the top libraries that will simplify development on the .NET platform and help you stay on the cutting edge of modern technology.

🏆 2024 Winners by Category

Web Development: FastEndpoints — a lightweight alternative to standard ASP.NET Core controllers. The library allows you to create REST APIs with minimal boilerplate code and excellent performance.
Database: EF Core (Entity Framework Core) — the perennial leader. This year, Microsoft's team introduced improved support for JSON columns and bulk operations.
Serialization: System.Text.Json — continues to outpace Newtonsoft.Json thanks to native support and high speed with AOT compilation.
Testing: xUnit.net — remains the standard for unit tests. The win was secured by support for parallel execution and integration with new versions of .NET 9.
Logging and Monitoring: Serilog — a flexible structured logging system with a huge ecosystem of sinks (including OpenTelemetry).
Artificial Intelligence and ML: ML.NET — a built-in framework for machine learning. In 2024, it added support for ONNX Runtime and simplified integration with Azure Cognitive Services.
Infrastructure and Utilities: Polly — a library for managing fault tolerance (retry, circuit breaker, timeout). Indispensable for microservice architecture.
HTTP: Refit — automatic generation of HTTP clients based on interfaces. The win is due to minimal configuration and support for OpenAPI.

📈 Trends and Surprising Discoveries

This year, the community noted a sharp increase in interest in Blazor Hybrid and Maui.Graphics — libraries for cross-platform development. Also, for the first time, the Semantic Kernel library from Microsoft, designed for integrating LLMs (large language models) into .NET applications, entered the top 10. This indicates that the C# community is actively exploring the AI field.

The voting showed: developers are increasingly choosing native solutions (System.Text.Json over Newtonsoft.Json) and tools with minimal memory consumption. Libraries compatible with Native AOT — a key feature of .NET 9 — gained particular popularity.