Maximizing ASP.NET Core Performance: A Comprehensive Guide

Are you familiar with ASP.NET Core?

In the current dynamic digital landscape, the performance of your website plays a crucial role in engaging and retaining users.

Performance stands as a pivotal factor in unveiling the success of a website. When your website takes longer than five seconds to load, it’s like having a shop where customers walk away before even entering.

ASP.NET Core is a beautifully designed masterpiece. It completely transforms the web development industry by fusing the ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web API programming models together seamlessly.

If you’re keen to improve the functionality of your web application, think about collaborating with a trustworthy.NET development company or hire ASP.NET developers.

Their proven combination of technical excellence and human touch could be the catalyst your project needs to flourish.

Let’s begin with the best practices to enhance the performance of ASP.NET Core.

(1) Using the Latest Version

ASP.NET Core has made significant advancements since its initial introduction in tandem with Visual Studio 2015 back in 2016.

The latest iteration, ASP.NET Core 3.0, reaffirms Microsoft’s dedication to performance enhancement. Applications crafted using ASP.NET Core 3.0 unmistakably demonstrate enhanced speed when compared to their predecessors.

Microsoft consistently integrates performance enhancements into subsequent versions. To guarantee that your ASP.NET Core application operates at peak efficiency, it’s paramount to embrace the latest version.

(2) Utilize JSON Serialization

ASP.NET Core 3.0 introduced System.Text.Json for JSON serialization, enabling asynchronous JSON read and write operations without waiting for other processes.

This high-performance JSON serialization is more efficient than Newtonsoft.Json. The System.Text.Json namespace offers low allocation, compliant functionality, and efficient JSON text serialization and deserialization.

(3) Prioritize Caching

Caching stands as a crucial tactic for boosting application performance. It effectively diminishes the volume of requests directed to the server, thereby augmenting response times.

Rather than repeatedly retrieving data from the server, the preferred approach involves caching the initial response. Subsequent requests are then compared with the cached data for a match.

In the event that a match is discovered, no server call is necessary because the data is obtained from the cache.

Reduce server calls and boost application performance by implementing several caching strategies such as distributed cache, in-memory caching, cache tag helper, and distributed cache tag helper.

(4) Optimize Data Access

Efficient data access is crucial for application performance. Many applications heavily depend on databases, which can lead to slow load times if not optimized. To enhance efficiency:

• Reduce the number of HTTP calls and network round trips.
• Retrieve data in fewer server calls, minimizing data retrieval operations.
• Implement caching for static data to reduce response load and enhance application speed.

(5) Avoid Synchronous Calls

One of the key principles of ASP.NET Core is handling multiple requests concurrently. Asynchronous APIs enable a small set of threads to manage thousands of simultaneous requests without blocking.

Blocking synchronous calls can lead to performance issues, as it hampers thread pooling and response times.

To ensure your application’s responsiveness, prefer asynchronous calls, allowing threads to efficiently process multiple requests simultaneously.

(6) Optimize Custom Code

In addition to data access, optimizing custom business logic and middleware code can significantly improve application efficiency. Key considerations include:

• Configure custom code, such as logging and authentication handlers, for optimal performance.
• Avoid long-running custom executions in the business logic layer or middleware as it can block requests and slow down the application.
• Optimize code to execute long-term tasks asynchronously to avoid disrupting other processes.

(7) Minimize Allocations in Large Objects

Memory management is critical for high-performance ASP.NET Core applications. Unnecessary object allocations can impact performance by forcing the garbage collector to clean up. To minimize allocations in large objects:

• Cache frequently used large objects to avoid costly allocations.
• Utilize the ArrayPool to manage large arrays for buffer pooling.
• Avoid assigning short-lived large objects to hot code paths.

(8) Use Response Caching Middleware

Optimize frequently-called code paths by configuring Response Caching Middleware. This middleware, available in the Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCaching package, stores responses and serves them from the cache, reducing server load and enhancing application performance.

(9) Response Compression for File Size

Another key aspect of performance optimization is response compression. Response compression middleware can significantly reduce file sizes, including CSS, JavaScript, HTML, XML, and JSON. However, avoid compressing natively compressed properties like PNG files and very small files.

(10) Use Exceptions Judiciously

Exceptions should be rare in your application. Throwing and handling exceptions can be time-consuming compared to other code flow patterns.

Use exceptions only when necessary, and leverage app diagnostic tools like Application Insights to identify and understand exceptions in your application effectively.

Conclusion

I hope reading the content above was enjoyable for you. Finally, implementing the best practices discussed in this blog may improve your web application’s responsiveness, performance, and dependability.

If you aspire to attain peak performance and require seasoned assistance, contemplate the option to hire ASP.NET developers or teaming up with a proficient .NET development company. Their wealth of expertise and experience can propel your web application to new heights.

Happy Reading!