<ahref='https://www.microsoft.com/net'target='_blank'rel='nofollow'>.NET Framework</a> or simply, .NET is a multi-purpose multi-language runtime framework; created and owned by <ahref='https://www.microsoft.com'target='_blank'rel='nofollow'>Microsoft</a>.
It has a large class library, supports language interpolability; and runs primarily on Windows.
Microsoft started development of .NET Framework in the late 1990s, and by the 2000s a beta version was released. Other than Windows GUI development and Windows Phone apps development; the .NET framework is used in web development.
It works seamlessly with <ahref='https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/'target='_blank'rel='nofollow'>Microsoft Azure</a> cloud hosting platform and <ahref='https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server/'target='_blank'rel='nofollow'>SQL Server</a> database. It allows programming the server side in multiple different languages; predominantly in <ahref='https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/67ef8sbd.aspx'target='_blank'rel='nofollow'>C#</a>.
With <ahref='https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx'target='_blank'rel='nofollow'>MSDN</a> as a content-rich community, there are lots of potentials and benefits to using .NET for web development.