ASP.NET Core 10 ships production-ready Native AOT support that removes the JIT entirely. Applications compile directly to native code, yielding binaries that start in milliseconds and require no runtime installation.

The change matters most for containerized workloads and serverless functions where cold-start latency and image size directly affect cost and responsiveness.

Teams already report 60-80 % smaller container images and consistent sub-second response times on first request after deployment to IIS or Windows containers.

#Enabling Native AOT

Add the PublishAot property and trim incompatible packages. The project file change is minimal.

xml 
<PropertyGroup>
  <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>
  <InvariantGlobalization>true</InvariantGlobalization>
</PropertyGroup>

#Key Limitations

  • Reflection and dynamic assembly loading are restricted; use source generators instead.
  • Entity Framework Core requires additional configuration or stored procedures for complex queries.
  • Some third-party libraries still lack AOT annotations; test early in the migration.

#Deployment on Windows Server

Publish as a single-file executable and copy the resulting binary to the target server. No .NET runtime installation is required, simplifying IIS application pool configuration.

bash 
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained

The resulting .exe can be referenced directly from an IIS site or run as a Windows service using the built-in hosting bundle.

#Practical Takeaway

Start by enabling PublishAot on new minimal API projects and measure startup time plus image size. Address reflection warnings one library at a time. The resulting deployments are smaller, start faster, and require fewer moving parts on Windows Server infrastructure.