FAQ

Q: What is Blazor?

Blazor is a single page web app framework built on .NET that runs in the browser via WebAssembly

Q: What is .NET?

.NET is a free, cross-platform, open source developer platform for building many different types of applications (desktop, mobile, games, web). .NET includes a managed runtime, a standard set of libraries, and support for multiple modern programming languages: C#, F#, and VB. You can get started with .NET in 10 min.

Q: Is Blazor a port of an existing JavaScript framework?

Blazor is inspired by existing modern single page app frameworks, like React, but is also a new framework in its own right.

Q: Is this Silverlight all over again?

No, Blazor is a .NET web framework based on HTML and CSS that runs in the browser using open web standards. It requires no plugin and works on mobile devices and older browsers.

Q: How can you run .NET in a web browser?

Running .NET in the browser in made possible by a relatively new standardized web technology called WebAssembly. WebAssembly is a "portable, size- and load-time-efficient format suitable for compilation to the web." Code compiled to WebAssembly can run in any browser at native speeds. To run .NET binaries in a web browser we use a .NET runtime (specifically Mono in this case) that has been compiled to WebAssembly.

Q: Is WebAssembly supported in all browsers?

Yes, WebAssembly has achieved cross-browser consensus all modern browsers now support WebAssembly

Q: Does Blazor work on mobile browsers?

Yes, modern mobile browsers also support WebAssembly.

Q: What about older browsers that don't support WebAssembly? For example, does Blazor work in IE?

For older browsers that don't support WebAssembly Blazor will fallback to using an asm.js based .NET runtime. Using asm.js is slower and has a larger download size, but is still quite functional.