.NET Framework
- Was released in the year 2002 and along allows to build Windows Applications
- It will not get new features but can still be used to build Windows only applications and App Modules that are only supported by .NET Framework (WPF, Windows Forms)
- The last version is 4.8
.NET Core
- It is an reinterpretation of the .NET Framework with emphasis on cross platform compatibility
- The last version is 3.1
.NET
- It is the continuation of the .NET Core project under a new name which will be followed from version 5 onward
- v4 was skipped as to not cause confusion with .NET Framework 4
.NET Standard
- Set of common Base Class Libraries (BCL) which can be used across .NET implementations (.NET Framework, .NET Core, Xamarin, Mono) and supported OS
- It is an temporary solution that is used to bridge the gap between the various .NET implementations
- If our project is build on a newer Standard then we have access to a lot of new APIs but they will not run on very old versions of .NET
- .NET Standard will go away once .NET 6 is released as it is will merge all the BCLs implementation into a common BCLs that can be used across implementations
- The last version is 2.1
