What NET Foundation does

The .NET Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization established in 2014 to support the open-source ecosystem around the .NET platform. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, and operating globally, it functions as a neutral governance and stewardship body for 556 active open-source projects — including Entity Framework Core, Avalonia UI, xUnit, BenchmarkDotNet, Akka.NET, MailKit, FluentValidation, DotVVM, Esquio, Steeltoe, JSON Everything, OwaspHeaders.Core, and SharpPulsar — providing project hosting, Contributor License Agreement support, intellectual property management, and community resources. The Foundation is governed by an independent Board of Directors (3-7 directors) with Microsoft serving as Founding Member holding an appointed director seat and special voting rights on policy, IP, and governance matters. The organization supports 400+ .NET Meetup user groups worldwide and offers 59,275+ learning resources.

The Foundation does not develop or sell commercial software products; its operations are funded entirely through corporate sponsorships and optional individual donations. Premier Sponsors are Microsoft and JetBrains, with additional support from Sentry, Progress Telerik (donated Sitefinity license), VMware (contributed the Steeltoe project), and americaneagle.com (website partner). Individual membership is free (with a suggested optional $100 annual donation), and members may vote in Board of Directors elections under the Membership Policy adopted November 7, 2022. Bylaws were amended and restated effective July 28, 2020. The Foundation's primary constituents are individual .NET developers, enterprise organizations that depend on the .NET stack, and community organizers running local meetups.

Distribution and engagement run through open channels: GitHub repositories, the NuGet package gallery, the dotnetfoundation.org website, Discord, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, and a Virtual User Group program with dedicated streaming support. Featured contributors span the USA (Delaware, Arlington, New York), Accra (Ghana), the United Kingdom, India, and the Czech Republic, with operations claimed across the USA, GBR, IND, and CZE. Strategic activity centers on ecosystem stewardship, including onboarding new seed projects (Microsoft open-sourced XAML Studio to the Foundation in 2025), sponsorship cultivation, and governance policy maintenance. Day-to-day leadership consists of Jay Schmelzer as President and Jon Galloway as Executive Director, supported by an 11-50 person team.

Name

NET Foundation

Legal name

.NET Foundation

Website

https://dotnetfoundation.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The .NET Foundation is an independent nonprofit that provides governance, hosting, and community support for 556 active open-source .NET projects, serving individual developers, enterprise organizations, and meetup groups worldwide through corporate sponsorships and donations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Open Source Ecosystem Governance

NAICS

Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Private Foundations (BPAGAKAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Corporate Foundations & CSR Grantmaking (BPAGAKAC), Community Foundations (BPAGAKAB)

Keywords

• Open source foundation
• Ecosystem governance services
• .NET project hosting
• Developer community programs
• Corporate sponsorship management

Headquarters

HQ city

Redmond

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

The .NET Foundation provides independent governance, IP/CLA administration, and community support for open-source .NET projects. It hosts 556+ active projects under a commercially-friendly permissive licensing framework, distributes them via GitHub and NuGet, and coordinates a global community of 400+ meetup groups, learning resources, and corporate sponsors. Operations are funded by corporate sponsorship (Microsoft, JetBrains, Progress Telerik, Sentry, VMware) and voluntary individual member donations.

Product overview

The .NET Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization that supports an open-source ecosystem around the .NET platform. It does not develop its own commercial products; instead, it provides governance, community support, resources, and hosting for open-source .NET projects. The foundation supports 556 active projects including Entity Framework Core, Avalonia UI, xUnit, BenchmarkDotNet, Akka.NET, MailKit, FluentValidation, Esquio, Steeltoe, SharpPulsar, OwaspHeaders.Core, and JSON Everything. It also facilitates .NET Meetups (400+ user groups globally), provides learning resources, and operates membership programs with corporate sponsorship. The foundation's operations are funded by sponsorship and donations rather than product revenue.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• XAML Studio Open-source visual designer for XAML-based user interfaces, hosted under the .NET Foundation; targets .NET developers building WinUI 3 and .NET MAUI applications who need visual design tooling.
• Open-Source Project Hosting and Governance Formal project hosting, governance policy administration, and Contributor License Agreement (CLA) management for open-source .NET projects, providing a neutral, independent stewardship framework with commercially-friendly permissive licensing for project maintainers and corporate contributors.
• Corporate Sponsorship Program Multi-tiered corporate sponsorship offering (Premier tier with Microsoft and JetBrains; Supporting and Contributing tiers) for enterprises that fund .NET Foundation operations and gain ecosystem visibility, governance participation, and stewardship influence.
• Individual Membership Program Free individual membership with optional $100 voluntary annual donation, granting voting rights for Board of Directors elections and the right to run for director positions, based on the Membership Policy adopted November 7, 2022.
• .NET Meetups and Virtual User Group Program Community program supporting 400+ .NET user groups globally with templates, theming, promotional resources, a speaker directory, and virtual event streaming infrastructure for local meetup organizers.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• americaneagle.comminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerWebsite development and maintenance partner for dotnetfoundation.org.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Eclipse Foundation: Independent nonprofit foundation providing governance, IP management, and ecosystem services for open-source projects, primarily in the Java ecosystem. Directly comparable to the .NET Foundation as a vendor-neutral steward of a major language ecosystem's open-source projects with elected governance and corporate sponsorship.
• Apache Software Foundation: Decentralized open-source foundation providing governance for over 350 top-level projects across multiple language ecosystems. Directly comparable model of independent nonprofit governance, IP licensing, and corporate sponsorship supporting a broad open-source portfolio.
• Python Software Foundation: Nonprofit organization governing the Python language ecosystem, including CPython, PyPI, and community programs. Direct peer as a language-ecosystem-specific foundation with member-based governance, corporate sponsorship (Microsoft is also a sponsor), and community event support.
• Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF): Linux Foundation sub-foundation governing cloud-native open-source projects (Kubernetes, Prometheus, etc.). Directly comparable as an OSS foundation providing governance and ecosystem support for developer infrastructure projects with strong corporate sponsorship from major tech companies.
• OpenJS Foundation: Node.js-focused open-source foundation providing governance and support for JavaScript runtime ecosystem projects. Directly comparable as a language-runtime-specific foundation with elected governance, corporate sponsorship, and community support programs.
• Rust Foundation: Independent nonprofit foundation established to support the Rust language ecosystem with corporate sponsorship from AWS, Google, Microsoft, and others. Direct peer as a language-ecosystem foundation with similar governance structure, sponsor-funded model, and community focus.
• Software Freedom Conservancy: Nonprofit organization providing fiscal and governance support to open-source projects (Git, BusyBox, Selenium, etc.). Direct peer as a smaller OSS-focused nonprofit providing governance and support services funded by donations and corporate sponsorships.

Broad incumbents

• Linux Foundation: Largest open-source foundation providing governance for hundreds of projects across multiple ecosystems (Linux kernel, CNCF, OpenJS, etc.). Broader incumbent serving as an umbrella for several direct peer foundations; comparable governance model but vastly larger scale and resources.
• Free Software Foundation: Foundational nonprofit advocating for free software and supporting GNU project governance. Broader incumbent with an ideological mission and longer history; comparable as a nonprofit supporting open-source governance and community, though with a different philosophical orientation.
• Mozilla Foundation: Nonprofit organization supporting Mozilla open-source projects (Firefox, Servo) and internet health initiatives. Broader incumbent with a broader mission beyond pure developer ecosystem governance; comparable as a tech-focused nonprofit with corporate sponsorship and community programs.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/dotnetfdn
• GitHubgithub.com/dotnet-foundation
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCiaZbznpWV1o-KLxj8zqR6A
• Facebookfacebook.com/dotnetfoundation
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/dotnetfoundation

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about NET Foundation