The 5.0.0 release is a major release and represents the official migration from .NET 7 to .NET 8.
.NET 8 is the latest iteration of the .NET platform. It is a Long Term Support (LTS) release which means that it will be fully supported by Microsoft for the next 3 years (.NET 7 support ends in May 2024). The .NET 8 release includes enhanced performance, improved diagnostic and observability, expanded cross-platform support, and advanced tooling and integration. In addition, it includes some of the most substantial investments and improvements to Blazor and .NET MAUI since these UI frameworks were first introduced.
With the release of 5.0, Oqtane is fully transitioning its development efforts to .NET 8. And in alignment with our philosophy, there is a seamless and automated upgrade path from all prior Oqtane releases to the 5.0 release. In addition, Oqtane modules and themes that were created for prior versions will continue to function properly on 5.0 as the framework remains fully backward compatible.
To date, the open source project has recorded over 1900 pull requests from 50 contributors and has published 39 official releases, which ranks it among the most active open source projects within the .NET Foundation. The Oqtane framework continues to evolve at a rapid pace to meet the needs of .NET developers. The 5.0.0 release is available for download on Github and is running in production at https://www.oqtane.org, https://www.blazorcms.net, and https://www.blazorkit.net.