New features in .NET Core 2.1

Microsoft's .NET Core 2.1 is a nice update over 2.0 with a mix of performance improvements and new APIs. If you are on 2.0, it is worth planning an upgrade.

I'm not planning to write a full-blown feature list here, as Microsoft is already doing a nice job here. Instead, I want to highlight some new features and additions:

• Long Term Support (LTS): version 2.1 is an LTS release, so it is a solid target for production apps.
• HttpClientFactory: built-in way to create and manage HttpClient instances without socket exhaustion.
• Spans and memory APIs: The Span<T> type (and friends) help reduce allocations and speed up low-level code. Great to have these!
• Improved ASP.NET Core performance: The Kestrel web server and ASP.NET MVC got faster and more efficient.
• Global tools: you can now install .NET Core tools globally with dotnet tool install command.

Upgrading an existing application is usually just a matter of updating the target framework and SDK in your C# project's .csproj file:

<TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>

Along the project file change, install the 2.1 SDK and rebuild. For new projects, 2.1 is a good default for both web and console applications.