According to industry estimates, approximately 7-8 million developers specialize in .NET! With such a wide market, searching for the perfect provider is a real challenge. To save time and effort, scroll down to discover the most highly reputed .NET development companies on the market. Just below the table, you’ll find a detailed description of the methodology we used to rank them. And finally, we’ve provided a guide on how to shortlist these firms and make the most out of our rankings.
Our goal is to present you with an unbiased opinion regarding the best .NET experts. To succeed in this mission, we designed a custom evaluation methodology that assesses the crucial aspects behind each company, including their past projects, the services offered, customer satisfaction, and more. In the following section, you can find all the details about it.
Our evaluation of the industry-leading .NET developers starts with a website visit. We do this to get a glimpse into the services they offer. Once we establish whether a company specializes in developing on .NET, we investigate their history and determine how long they’ve been on the market. .NET isn’t a recent thing, so in this sense, the more experienced the company is, the better. The final step at this point is to find out whether the company specializes in a certain industry. This information doesn’t influence rankings, but it helps us classify the companies.
The .NET development companies that pass our initial assessment are subjected to a deeper examination of their expertise and experience. We go through their portfolio, where we evaluate and test the solutions they’ve built for past clients.
The most basic certification these companies should have is the Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD): App Builder, which proves the developers’ competency in using the .NET. They can implement programming logic, perform looping and branching, develop user interfaces, define and use variables, capture and validate user input, and store data.
This credential is crucial as it requires the developers to pass strict exams and pledge to continue education in the field. Besides the MCSD, we also note any certifications in other languages or technologies that are compatible with the platform.
Rather than the .NET developers, what the former clients had to say about the team had a larger significance on our evaluation. Instead of relying solely on the testimonials companies showcase on their websites, we refer to third-party platforms like Clutch, Good Firms, and UpCity, and read the reviews left by past clients to ensure objectivity.
We don’t necessarily discard companies that have less-than-stellar reviews. In fact, we summarize their weak points and only then determine whether the bad outweighs the good. Based on that, we decide whether they’ll move on in our evaluation pipeline.
.NET is a platform that can be used for many different purposes, though not all companies deal with them all. That’s why we’ll break down the service evaluation into application models, which will also match the kinds of services that development providers can offer. While some of these are cross-platform and have overlapping features and qualities to observe, some target a specific OS or implementation. Below, we’ll elaborate on each of them individually.
Before we dive into the specialties required for each type of development, let’s briefly discuss the languages .NET companies should be proficient in. Note that the developers don’t need to know all of them.
F# is an open-source, functional-first, object-oriented programming language that involves type-inferred functions that are generalized automatically. It’s characterized by conciseness and generally takes fewer lines of code than C#. Additionally, it has a number of built-in libraries and an actor model, as well as excellent support.
C# is essentially the core language for building on .NET. It’s a simple, object-oriented, scalable, and structured programming language with a rich library and fast speed. Plus, C# comes with an advanced code editor, integrated debugger, and other tools that enable software developers to build secure and robust apps. Furthermore, C# makes it possible for .NET development companies to build cross-platform code that works on different operating systems like Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, and more.
Visual Basic is a simple yet powerful language with straightforward syntax for building type-safe, object-oriented, Windows-based apps. This is an interpreted language, meaning code can be run immediately upon writing it. VB runs only on Windows.
.NET as a platform isn’t enough for web development. The companies who offer web development are experienced in ASP.NET, which is essentially an extension of .NET. This framework is cross-platform and consists of a variety of tools, libraries, and languages—all suitable for building modern web apps or enhancing existing ones.
.NET developers gain several important features through ASP.NET, such as a base framework for processing web requests, Razor (the web-page templating syntax for building dynamic web pages using C# libraries), an authentication system, and advanced editor extensions for additional functionality. An ASP.NET web application is incredibly scalable, performs fast, and offers excellent security.
Xamarin is also an extension of .NET, which provides the tools and libraries needed for building apps in Android, iOS, macOS, and others. The apps built with Xamarin are native and highly functional, written in C#. They leverage platform-specific hardware acceleration.
In the .NET development environment, Xamarin provides the base framework, XAML for building dynamic mobile apps, libraries for common patterns and platform-specific libraries that include access to APIs from Facebook, Apple, and Google, as well as editor extensions for code completion, syntax highlighting, and other functionalities .NET development services employ to build mobile pages. When assessing how capable each company is in developing .NET mobile apps, we employ the evaluation methodology we designed specifically for finding the best app development companies.
When it comes to .NET desktop app development, there are several frameworks worth their salt, all of which we considered:
WPF is a .NET framework for creating visually stunning desktop apps for the Windows operating system. Its frontend is written in XAML, a proprietary version of XML, while its backend uses C#. WPF is designed to take advantage of scalable, flexible graphics hardware. It also provides .NET developers with an impressive set of features that include extensible layout, data binding, high-quality typography rendering, and special support for media, as well as a variety of styles, controls, and templates for customization.
WinForms is the easiest desktop app development technology providing easy-to-use drag-and-drop features. With this framework, you can develop graphically rich apps that are easy to deploy and work even when disconnected from the internet. Both the UI and the rest of the app are written in the language that the developer chooses (C# or VB.NET).
UWP provides .NET developers with a framework for writing highly responsive apps for Windows 10 devices (Xbox, Surface Hub, HoloLens, tablet, PC, phone, etc.). Besides being responsive and working on different screen sizes, the UWP apps support different types of interaction (i.e., game controller, pen, and touch). Plus, they’re highly secure and engaging. UWP is programmable in C#, C++, Visual Basic, and Javascript. For UI, it can be used with XAML, HTML, or DirectX.
Microservices are small, independently deployable, and highly scalable services that use the .NET platform. Each of them focuses on a unique concept, and once deployed, they can be scaled on demand. Microservices simplify the development, testing, and deployment of an app’s isolated parts.
ASP.NET development supports the development and deployment of the microservices that use Docker containers. These containers combine an app and its configuration with its dependencies into a single unit. The architecture of microservices can be mixed with those written in Go, Node.js, Java, or other languages.
The process of game development requires in-depth knowledge of VR and AR, so when identifying the top .NET development companies that provide this type of service, we took note of the platforms they build games on:
Unity is a game development platform for building games in 2D and 3D for Windows and macOS. This fully integrated app enables developers to build games that run on more than 25 platforms across consoles, desktops, mobile devices, VR, AR, TV, and the web. It provides the essential features for building an app from scratch, writing code, importing assets, debugging, and more.
MonoGame is an open-source game development framework that supports both C# and F# languages. .NET developers can use it to build cross-platform game apps for the major mobile and desktop OSs and consoles.
CryEngine is a superior game development platform with full engine source code that provides the tools needed to create engaging and appealing entertainment experiences for Windows and Linux. Plus, its integrated support enables centralized settings across different platforms.
.NET stands out among the technologies that offer big data as it provides strategic and seamless integration — software built by .NET developers simplifies big data analytics. Apache Spark is a processing engine for high-volume data analytics, including machine learning, processing batches of data, real-time streams, and more.
.NET for Apache Spark is compliant with .NET Standard, which is a formal specification of the .NET APIs, common across .NET implementations — enabling the use of .NET for Apache Spark anywhere its code is written. Additionally, .NET for Apache Spark allows developers to re-use all their existing skills, code, and libraries. The .NET development companies featured in our list offering this service were evaluated against our criteria for big data experts.
ML.NET is an open-source machine learning framework for building custom models without leaving the .NET ecosystem, using F# and C# languages. This platform is built on .NET Core and .NET Standard and can run cross-platform on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It incorporates the skills, code, and libraries that most types of .NET developers already have, which, in turn, enables easy ML integration into the apps. This framework infuses AI into the apps by creating custom ML models for scenarios such as customer segmentation, sentiment analysis, fraud detection, price prediction, image classification, and sales spike detection.
.NET companies offering Cognitive Services provide pre-built AI models that let developers add intelligent features to apps. From emotion detection and language understanding to speech and vision recognition—and everything in between—there are rich possibilities to solve any business problem. To ensure we can identify a .NET development company that excels in .NET AI, we employed the same methodology we did for our AI firms list.
Using the .NET platform, developers can build fast and scalable apps in hybrid environments that run on the PaaS model. Microsoft’s own cloud platform, Azure, is the most relevant platform for .NET software. It’s a platform as a service (PaaS) that comes with project templates that help .NET developers leverage powerful publishing, debugging, and CI/CD tools for enhanced productivity in development, deployment, and monitoring.
The UWP enables software development for IoT devices running Windows 10 IoT Core. Providing simple APIs, interaction models, and a UI framework, UWP makes it easy to build apps that run on devices like MinnowBoard MAX, Raspberry Pi, DragonBoard 410c, and more.
Regardless of the type of services .NET development companies provide, there’s much more than the actual development process to provide an all-encompassing five-star service. Each of the following features is considered a huge plus:
API integration is an important practice because it can help deliver the proper features and functionality a business needs. Plus, it simplifies the process of modernizing the legacy systems, turning them into independently deployable microservices apps. Given the immense benefits of seamless integration and customization, we made sure the top .NET development companies we’ve listed can integrate their product with other apps or third-party services within the client’s operations infrastructure, depending on their business needs.
It’s important that developers provide ongoing maintenance and technical support. Companies that include these services instill trust and ensure that you’ll get software upgrades and system enhancements in a timely manner. They’ll also provide any necessary bug fixes, backups, troubleshooting, and stability monitoring services. When it comes to technical support, we favor the .NET development companies that offer 24/7 availability, use several communication channels (live chat, ticket system, email, phone), and have knowledgeable staff.
Developing a software product requires writing high-quality code and delivering a reliable, flawless solution that operates seamlessly. That’s why quality assurance is of the utmost importance during this process. More than finding bugs, QA will detect any issues that might influence the software’s operation or affect the user experience, measure the product’s quality, ensure that the service functions work according to the client’s requirements, and more.
The .NET development companies that will smoothly migrate the client’s app to .NET and Azure, as well as from .NET to Azure, are given an advantage in terms of rankings. We make sure that the developers offering this option have extensive experience in transitioning projects across various industries and are agile in handling any porting procedures and issues that might arise.
There are specific .NET tools and platforms these companies need to be proficient in depending on the type of service they’re offering (which we discussed in the dedicated sections above). However, there are also substitutes for them that .NET companies utilize, all of which we check for:
Visual Studio Code is a source code editor available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Combining simplicity with powerful developer tools, this code editor comes with built-in support for TypeScript, JavaScript, and Node.js. Additionally, it has an extensive ecosystem of extensions for other languages, including C#, C++, Python, and PHP, helping with syntax highlighting, auto-indentation, snippets, bracket matching, and more.
OmniSharp is a set of tools, libraries, and editor integrations that create an ecosystem that enables great programming regardless of the editor and OS. As part of the open-source family of projects, OmniSharp enables .NET developers to work in the editor of their choice: Atom, Sublime Text, Brackets, Vim, or Emacs.
The .NET Core command-line interface is a toolchain for .NET development on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The command-line interface is the base upon which higher-level tools can rest. Examples of such tools include editors, IDEs (integrated development environments), and build orchestrators.
JetBrains Rider is a .NET IDE cross-platform built on ReShaper and IntelliJ technology. It supports the .NET and .NET Core apps across all platforms. It provides a vast number of code inspections, refactoring and context actions, and on top of all that, Rider is responsive and incredibly fast.
.NET companies could use Ionide, which is a VS Code, for working with the F# language on Windows, Linux, or macOS. It includes all the important features found in IDE—syntax highlighting, document formation, autocomplete, error highlighting, and more.
What each company offers is one of the most important aspects we consider during our evaluation; however, how they’re doing things is even more important. Below are a few criteria that the top .NET development companies must meet:
Agile management is based on an iterative approach. It uses sprints—short development cycles—which allow for changes during the development process, encouraging constant feedback from users. So far, this has proved to be the best project management method for software development, so we favor the companies that use it.
Preferably, the management team of the .NET development companies will have a scrum master who will be concerned with the team’s functionality and will monitor its processes. Employing a scrum master is a methodology that facilitates things for the agile development team. It enables self-organization and allows for quick changes. Part of the scrum master’s responsibility is motivating the team and boosting efficiency while also ensuring timeliness and quality.
SMART deliverables are also part of successful agile management. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound, meaning that the project goals need to adhere to these deliverables to be effective. Specifically, the goal should answer a specific need or target a specific area of improvement, be quantifiable and realistic, align with other business objectives, and have an established deadline. Operating in a field that is time-sensitive and requires a pragmatic approach, the top .NET development companies typically adopt SMART deliveries or variations.
The .NET or ASP.NET web development process starts with the idea that then undergoes in-depth analysis and evaluation and is turned into wireframes and blueprints. The next stage is creative modeling, through which a minimum viable product (MVP) is delivered. The MVP has enough features to satisfy the initial users, and the final set of features is designed and developed after those users send feedback.
After the features are analyzed and evaluated against the original plan, the developer should move to beta development. This iteration is subjected to QA and testing, and if it passes, the deployment process follows, and the product is moved into support mode. We verified that the .NET development companies on our list follow the full-cycle service execution process.
Communication is of the utmost importance when it comes to product development. We expect that the companies will be accessible through multiple channels and that clients will be able to communicate with the project managers themselves and not mediators. Also, we expect that the client will be able to get in touch with the rest of the team members working directly on the project.
Any professional .NET development company should be able to deliver comprehensive and comprehensible reports. Also, we expect them to be up-front about any issues that might have appeared during the execution process so that they’re solved in a timely manner.
Beyond knowing which companies stand out when it comes to developing on .NET, it’s important to compare them against your business needs. In the following section, you’ll discover which points to consider in order to shortlist these companies.
Time is money, literally, and your company of choice should know this. Reliable .NET and ASP.NET website development companies are able to deliver products within set timeframes. This practice enables you to test the software and report any issues or bugs. Also, your employees will be able to go through the training process to make better use of the product.
A vital yet often skipped step when choosing .NET development companies is checking their experience in your industry. The best way to do this is to go through their portfolio and check the performance and the overall user experience of the products they’ve developed. This will simplify the shortlisting process, giving you confidence that the candidates know what they’re doing.
Of course, the cost is one of the most important things to consider when choosing a .NET web development company. First of all, you need to have an established budget for your project. Then, you need to check the quotes the companies offer and whether they include extra services such as maintenance and support. Finally, determine whether the project costs align with your budget allocation plans and your business needs. If yes, you can include that company in your shortlist and continue your assessment.
We can’t stress enough how important this aspect is. Before closing the deal, you need to make sure that .NET development companies on your list invest time and effort in regular updates. You also need to ask for a dedicated contact person (ideally, the project manager) and make sure that they’ll be available on demand. Finally, during your initial interviews, assess whether they take a collaborative approach—you want a partner and not a generic company that does things without consultation.