Weekly .NET Roundup: Containers, Aspire 9.5, and MAUI Compliance

by TechHub

This week’s coding highlights include updates in .NET development, new container tooling in Visual Studio, and practical advice on platform compliance, distributed workflows, and migration planning.

Visual Studio 2026 and Container Tooling

Visual Studio 2026 Insiders now supports Podman, enabling developers to use this daemonless, rootless container engine instead of Docker for increased security and flexibility. The IDE detects Podman automatically and offers tools for managing images, debugging, and working with containers from the terminal—making secure Linux container development more approachable.

.NET Aspire 9.5 and Modern .NET Cloud-Native Development

.NET Aspire 9.5 provides improvements for distributed .NET applications, including a new ‘aspire update’ CLI for managing SDK/package upgrades, improved dashboards, a single-file AppHost preview for fast prototyping, and color-coded telemetry. GenAI Visualizer aids model debugging, YARP supports static files, and integration with Azure DevTunnels supports local secure testing. Visual Studio 2026 picks up new Aspire tracing features, and migration guides offer help for upgrades from Aspire 8.x.

.NET MAUI: App Compliance, Migration, and Community Engagement

.NET MAUI applications must update to MAUI 9 to comply with Google Play's 16 KB memory page rule for Android 15+. Guidance is available for checking dependencies and updating build tools. The MAUI Community Standup event in Prague continues focus on collaboration and ongoing platform improvements, reflecting recent compliance and migration support topics.

.NET Platform Strategy and Database Migrations

Microsoft has clarified support timelines for .NET LTS/STS releases. Nick Chapsas provides migration planning guidance, helping developers minimize upgrade risk. Jeremy Miller’s Data Community Standup compares Marten/PostgreSQL and Entity Framework Core, offering real-world migration Q&A for developers planning database changes.

Building Server-Side and CLI Tools with .NET

The latest ASP.NET Community Standup demonstrates a multi-user MCP server, highlighting collaborative code review and refactoring workflows. Andrew Lock’s guide on ‘sleep-pc’ covers .NET Native AOT usage, Win32 integration, argument processing, and NuGet packaging for durable server-side and CLI tool creation.