For the past couple of years, Microsoft has been developing two forms of the SignalR – the original ASP.NET SignalR library and the newer ASP.NET Core SignalR. Microsoft’s Andrew Stanton-Nurse recently shared some details on the upcoming 2.4 release for ASP.NET SignalR, and stated that after this release this older SignalR implementation will enter a support-only mode.
So what is in 2.4? Primarily support for Azure SignalR Service. SignalR support for this service debuted in ASP.NET Core SignalR, and is going to now be added to ASP.NET SignalR. One of the advantages of Azure support is that it takes over responsibility for scaling connections.
As ASP.NET Core SignalR is the future of the protocol, some limitations are being added to the ASP.NET SignalR 2.4 library. Support for Windows 8/8.1 Store applications, Windows Phone, and Silverlight are being removed. Instead, 2.4 will support .NET Framework 4.5+ and .NET Standard 2.0 as that includes Xamarin, and UWP.
Post 2.4, going forward the development priorities for ASP.NET SignalR will focus solely on bug patches and security fixes. This means developers looking for new features or more supported platforms will have to turn to ASP.NET Core SignalR. Post 2.4, going forward the development priorities for ASP.NET SignalR will focus solely on bug patches and security fixes. This means developers looking for new features or more supported platforms will have to turn to ASP.NET Core SignalR.
Microsoft maintains a GitHub repository for its development and documentation on how to get started with ASP.NET Core SignalR is also available.