Your first application

Ready to build your first web app with ASP.NET Core? You’ll need to gather a few things first:

Your favorite code editor. You can use Atom, Sublime, Notepad, or whatever editor you prefer writing code in. If you don’t have a favorite, give Visual Studio Code a try. It’s a free, cross-platform code editor that has rich support for writing C#, JavaScript, HTML, and more. Just search for “download visual studio code” and follow the instructions.

If you’re on Windows, you can also use Visual Studio to build ASP.NET Core applications. You’ll need Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3 or later (the free Community Edition is fine). Visual Studio has great code completion and other features specific to C#, although Visual Studio Code is close behind.

The .NET Core SDK. Regardless of the editor or platform you’re using, you’ll need to install the .NET Core SDK, which includes the runtime, base libraries, and command line tools you need for building ASP.NET Core apps. The SDK can be installed on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Once you’ve decided on an editor, you’ll need to get the SDK.