How much it costs to choose .NET over the open source such us Java, Struts, etc.

Question

Hello,

Two of my colleagues (and very good friends) have worked for years in Java, PHP, MYSQL, Tomcat, Struts, and the list go really on and on. I'm (the only one who chose the .NET framework). Now, our manager has convinced our boss to invest on us and some other who are willing to go through the process. So far, battles (them vs me) to convince other which framework (.Net - other free framework) has been pointless. Now, my friends have a new argument: .NET is not free.

I'd like to know how much it cost to choose .NET over the other (for instance, Java, Struts, TomCat, etc...). I'm not talking about which technology is better, but how much .NET would cost. So far, all the cost of learning was related to the purchase of my books (Visual studio Express is free).

By the way: If .NET is not free why people are still using it. Or, only big companies can use .NET???

Thanks for helping.

Answer 1

It is free, but it is vendor locked to Microsoft. However the specifications for the underlying idea (C#, CLR/CLI) are not controlled entirely by Microsoft.

The cost of training is dependant on current skill levels. However, there is a very large amount of training and support material on the net and in publications.

Another aspect to the cost of ownership of the .NET Framework as it stands (ignoring Mono) is that it locks you on to a Windows platform (which incurs licensing).

More ownership costs are in productivity using the framework, however I cannot answer this in comparison to your current frameworks and tools.

Answer 2

You don't have to pay to use .NET. You do have to pay for the Windows licenses.

Note: Java books cost money too.

Answer 3

The .NET Framework is free - you can download it here.

What isn't free, is Windows - on which you host your application. There are various hosting options, depending on the size and requirements of your project. For small and single server applications, there are shared hosts & virtual servers available. Then there are dedicated servers, clusters and so forth.. As you can imagine, more servers = more licenses and that's where it could get expensive. But typically you can host .NET applications for a pretty cheap price :)

Answer 4

.NET is not any more expensive than Java. You have to pay for - the operating system you run on, books to learn from, etc. But Visual Studio and .NET themselves are free. There's nothing more expensive about .NET.

Answer 5

Ask your friends to come up with the reason for that statement.

The .Net environment is free, but the development environment (if you want to use a professional version of Visual Studio) is not.

The java (etc) environment isn't entirely without costs either, there is always training, hardware and development time (== money).

Answer 6

.NET is free - for download, use and anything.

What will cost you is the licenses for

• your Windows operating system (yes, you could use Linux instead - almost free)
• your development environment (Visual Studio costs money - except for the free Express editions, or you could use the free SharpDevelop IDE)
• your database server (possibly, but again: free SQL Server Express editions are available, as well as a plethora of other free products)

You can absolutely develop 100% with free software for .NET, and using .NET doesn't cost you a thing (except the Windows OS license, maybe)

Answer 7

It is free. The OS it runs on isn't. Also, there is Mono: an open source, cross-platform implementation of the CLR that is binary compatible with Microsoft.NET (you can use your .NET skills on other OSes than Windows).

Bottom-line: it costs nothing do develop under .NET, it may cost something (win license) to your users.

Answer 8

I'm not sure if you are asking about the framework itself or the whole development stack. If you are going serious about .NET development, I guess there is some cost, like a Professional license for Visual Studio ($1200 - the Express edition doesn't support plugins, for example).

If you are doing web development there's also the cost of hosting, which is usually more than LAMP stack hosts. This however varies a lot between providers and you need research. The cheapest ASP.NET shared hosts are in the range of $5 - $15 monthly.

Of course there are always alternatives to the paid things, but some of them (VS) are taken for granted in the community and you would reach dead ends in some cases if using free tools.

Answer 9

When people say .Net is not free, they mean it is not free as in free speech not as in free beer.

That may or may not be an issue for you. It depends on how you view being tied to a proprietary development environment. Judging by the amount of .Net based software, it's not an issue for a lot of people, but there is a risk that one day Microsoft will decide to start charging developers to use .Net or impose other conditions that you do not find acceptable.

Answer 10

just download visual studio with free SQL Server 2005 and you have a free .NET development enviroment

Answer 11

Everything can be done for free using .net:

1. IDE - Mono Develop (free) and runs on both windows and Linux
2. Database - MySQL, SQLLite etc. these are all free and can run on both windows and linux
3. .NET Framework also free

However, if you want to go the full on freebie route, you will have to make some compromises, as mono develop is great, but not as good as visual studio.

Ultimately, if you want a seamless integrated solution of framework, IDE, database etc, you will have to fork out some money.

Answer 12

The crux of the question is the meaning of "free". As others have pointed out, the integrated development environment (IDE) for .Net is as free as the IDEs for Java, PHP, etc. That is where the differences end. Furthermore, nothing is really free.

1. Runtime licenses vary in cost. If you go with a LAMP (e.g. Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) platform, there are no run-time licenses. i.e. They are free. Microsoft will charge you noticeably for your .Net server licenses and your SQL Server licenses once you deploy your software. If you an Open Source Java implementation, or Mono (open source .Net), deployment will be free of licensing cost. If you use a commercial Java Virtual Machine (JVM), you'll pay a runtime license.
2. Support is not free. If you go with LAMP, you'll end up using in-house resources for support, and/or you will buy support from an external organization such as RedHat. Microsoft/IBM/Oracle have some level of support built in for their paid run-time licenses.
3. Legal indemnification is not free. When you go with a commercial vendor such as Microsoft (.Net), IBM/Oracle (JVM), and RedHat, you'll be protected against intellectual property claims of any software distributed by these vendors to be deployed by you. This turns out to be a big concern for companies that are big enough to be sued successfully. These costs are usually buried in run-time licenses or support contracts.

Issues 2 & 3 are why big companies usually go with Java or .Net. If you are big enough to be sued successfully, the runtime licenses are a cheap insurance policy. Also, big companies have more to lose if a software deployment fails, and tend to buy better support contracts.

Issue 1 is why small startups go with LAMP. Small companies usually prefer to support their own software stacks (mooting issue 2), and are not big enough to be sued (mooting issue 3). Also a software stack built with most infrastructure software released under Apache 2.0/MIT/BSD licenses are usually safe, and the Linux GPL license risk is manageable if you don't muck with the OS or drivers.

At my first startup, we chose .Net because our client-side IDE was .Net. It ended up costing a lot in the back end (e.g. $1500/month for over a year) for the .Net/SQL-Server licenses, even though the server was hardly used because we didn't have many users.

At other startups I worked for afterwards, they chose a Linux-Apache-MySQL-Ruby stack or a Linux-Nginx-PostgreSQL-Ruby stack. The deployment costs for underused servers was equal to the hosting costs of hosted virtual servers, which was a fraction of what a .Net stack would have cost.

Any project I ever saw with a big company or with people with a big-company mindset always chose Java or .Net. As company balance sheets get squeezed in this recession, and as open source software gets better support, big companies are starting to use LAMP and other open-source stacks, but this is coming slowly.

Answer 13

Sometimes free is too expensive

Nothing prevents you from going with Open Source products with Microsoft, either. There are many open source projects written in .NET that can be leveraged with your solutions, and Microsoft is becoming a lot more transparent. You aren't just buying products with Microsoft, you are actually buying productivity, which is very important as we all know working on open source platforms.

.NET is free. C# compilers are free Certain versions of Visual Studio are free. Do not fall for the anti-microsoft brigade telling you that it is high cost.