ASP.NET Core Developer Roadmap

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Roadmap to becoming an ASP.NET Core developer in 2026:

Below you can find a chart demonstrating the paths that you can take and the libraries that you would want to learn to become an ASP.NET Core developer. I made this chart as a tip for everyone who asks me, "What should I learn next as an ASP.NET Core developer?"

Disclaimer

The purpose of this roadmap is to give you an idea about the landscape. The road map will guide you if you are confused about what to learn next, rather than encouraging you to pick what is hip and trendy. You should grow some understanding of why one tool would be better suited for some cases than the other and remember hip and trendy does not always mean best suited for the job.

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Roadmap

Resources

1. General Development Skills

   • Learn Git, create a few repositories on GitHub, share your code with other people
   • Know HTTP(S) protocol, request methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, OPTIONS, etc.)
   • What is TLS?
   • What is SSL?
   • Don't be afraid of using Google, Power Searching with Google
   • Read a few books about algorithms and data structures
   • AI / LLMs
     • LLMs
       • OpenAI (ChatGPT)
       • Claude
       • Gemini
     • IDE / Tools
       • Cursor
         • Modes
           • Agent
           • Plan
           • Ask
         • MCPs
       • Claude Code
       • Lovable
     • Libraries
       • Semantic Kernel
       • OpenAI .NET

2. C#

   • C#
   • .NET 10
   • .NET CLI
   • StyleCop rules

3. SQL Fundamentals

   • Tutorials 📚
     • Pluralsight Learning Path: Querying Data with T-SQL from SQL Server

4. ASP.NET Core Basics

   • MVC
   • Minimal APIs
   • REST
   • Application Settings & Configurations
   • Middlewares
   • Filters & Attributes
   • Background Tasks
   • Authentication
   • Authorization
   • IdentityServer
   • Duende IdentityServer
   • OpenIddict
   • Auth0
   • OIDC
   • Caching
   • Razor Pages
   • Razor Components
   • Tutorials 📚
     • From Zero to Hero: REST APIs in .NET
     • From Zero to Hero: Minimal APIs in .NET with C#

5. SOLID

   • Single Responsibility Principle (SRP)
   • Open-Closed Principle (OCP)
   • Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP)
   • Interface Segregation Principle (ISP)
   • Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP)

6. ORM

   • Entity Framework Core
     • Tutorials 📚
       • From Zero to Hero: Entity Framework Core in .NET
   • Dapper

7. Dependency Injection

   1. DI Containers
      • Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection
      • AutoFac
   2. Scrutor
   • Tutorials 📚
     • From Zero to Hero: Dependency Injection in .NET

8. Databases

   1. Relational
      • SQL Server
      • PostgreSQL
      • MariaDB
      • MySQL
   2. Search Engines
      • ElasticSearch
      • Meilisearch
      • ManticoreSearch
      • OpenSearch
   3. NoSQL
      • On-Premises
        • Redis
        • MongoDB
        • Apache Cassandra
        • LiteDB
        • RavenDB
        • CouchDB
      • Cloud
        • CosmosDB
        • DynamoDB

9. Caching

   • Memory Cache
   • Distributed Cache
     1. Redis
        1. StackExchange.Redis
        2. EasyCaching
     2. Memcached
   • Application-Level
     • Response Caching
       1. Built in
       2. Marvin.Cache.Headers
     • Output Caching
     • Entity Framework 2nd Level Cache

10. Log Frameworks

    • Serilog
    • NLog
    • Tutorials 📚
      • From Zero to Hero: Logging in .NET

11. API Clients & Communications

    1. REST
       • Gridify
       • OData
       • REPR Pattern
         • Minimal APIs
         • Ardalis.Endpoints
         • Fast Endpoints
    2. gRPC
    3. GraphQL
       • HotChocolate
       • GraphQL-dotnet
    • Tutorials 📚
      • From Zero to Hero: REST APIs in .NET
      • From Zero to Hero: Minimal APIs in .NET with C#
      • From Zero to Hero: gRPC in .NET

12. Real-Time Communication

    • SignalR
    • WebSockets

13. Object Mapping

    • Manual mapping!
    • Mapperly
    • AutoMapper

14. Background Task Scheduler

    • Native BackgroundService
    • HangFire
    • Quartz
    • Coravel

15. Testing

    1. Unit Testing
       • Frameworks
         • xUnit
         • NUnit
         • MSTest
       • Mocking
         • Moq
         • NSubstitute
         • FakeItEasy
       • Assertion
         • FluentAssertion
       • Fake Data Generators
         • Bogus
         • AutoFixture
    2. Integration Testing
       • WebApplicationFactory
       • .NET Aspire
       • Test Containers
       • Respwan
    3. Snapshot Testing
       • Verify
    4. Behavior Testing
       • SpecFlow
    5. E2E Testing
       • Selenium
       • Puppeteer-Sharp
    6. Performance Testing
       • K6
       • JMeter
       • Crank
       • Bombardier
    7. Architecture Testing
       • ArchUnitNET
       • NetArchTest
    • Tutorials 📚
      • From Zero to Hero: Unit testing in C#
      • From Zero to Hero: Integration testing in ASP.NET Core
      • From Zero to Hero: Test-Driven Development in C#

16. Microservices

    1. Message-Brokers
       • RabbitMQ
       • Apache Kafka
       • Azure Service Bus
       • Amazon SQS
       • NetMQ
    2. Message-Bus
       • MassTransit
       • NServiceBus
       • EasyNetQ
    3. API Gateway
       • Ocelot
       • YARP
    4. Containerization
       • Docker
       • Podman
    5. Orchestration
       • Kubernetes
         • Rancher
         • Kubectl
         • K9s
    6. Other
       • .NET Aspire
       • Orleans
       • Proto.Actor
       • Dapr
       • Akka.NET
    • Tutorials 📚
      • Getting Started: Microservices Architecture
      • Getting Started: Solution Architecture
      • From Zero to Hero: Docker for Developers

17. Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery

    • GitHub Actions
    • Azure Pipelines
    • GitLab CI/CD
    • TeamCity CI/CD

18. Design Patterns

    • Categories
      • Creational
      • Structural
      • Behavioral
    • Tutorials 📚
      • Pluralsight Learning Path: Design Patterns in C#

19. Monitoring/Logging/Tracing/Alerting

    • Monitoring
      • On-Premises
        • Prometheus
        • Grafana
      • Cloud
        • Datadog
    • Logging
      • On-Premises
        • ELK Stack
        • Seq
        • Sentry.io
      • Cloud
        • Datadog
        • Sentry.io
      • Tutorials 📚
        • From Zero to Hero: Logging in .NET
    • Tracing
      • On-Premises
        • OpenTelemetry
          • Jaeger
          • Zipkin
          • Sentry.io
      • Cloud
        • Datadog
        • Sentry.io
    • Alerting
      • On-Premises
        • Zabbix
        • Alertmanager
      • Cloud
        • Datadog

20. Client-Side .NET

    • Template Engines
      • Razor
      • Scriban
      • Fluid
    • Frameworks
      • Blazor
      • .NET MAUI

21. Good to Know

    • Scalar
    • MediatR
    • Fluent Validation
    • Polly
    • Benchmark.NET
    • Distributed Lock
    • EF Core Bulk Extensions
    • Nuke Build
    • Marten

Microsoft courses

Microsoft has some very interesting online courses on its technologies. They're all free.

Wrap Up

If you think the roadmap can be improved, please do open a PR with any updates and submit any issues. Also, I will continue to improve this, so you might want to star this repository to revisit.

Idea from : React Developer RoadMap

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