A Windows Server you administer, with IIS, the .NET Hosting Bundle and SQL Server Express on the same box. You publish from Visual Studio or a GitHub action, bind your own certificate, and run the .NET version you actually target. From $28.99 a month: $13.99 compute plus the $15.00 Windows Server licence.
| Name | .NET CLR | Pipeline | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| contoso-api | No Managed Code | Integrated | Started |
| contoso-web | No Managed Code | Integrated | Started |
| legacy-4.8 | v4.0.30319 | Integrated | Started |
| https | *:443 | Let's Encrypt, renews 12 Nov |
| http | *:80 | redirect to https |
IIS, the .NET Hosting Bundle for the version you actually target, SQL Server, your workers and your certificates, on one Windows Server you administer. Shared hosting sells a site inside someone else's IIS for about $4, and it is cheaper for a reason: the host decides your .NET version, your trust level and whether workers run at all.
Here the stack is yours to install, patch and tune. It is why the second result for “asp.net hosting” is a thread asking why modern ASP.NET hosting is so hard to find. A dedicated server is the answer.
.NET 10 Hosting Bundle and IIS setup ›| Shared ASP.NET host | Your own VPS on Raff | |
|---|---|---|
| What you rent | A site inside a shared IIS | A whole Windows Server, dedicated, with the full stack |
| .NET version | Whatever the host installed | Any bundle you install, .NET 10 on day one |
| Trust level | Often medium, some assemblies blocked | Full trust, you are the administrator |
| Background work | Usually not allowed | Worker services and Task Scheduler |
| WebSockets and SignalR | Plan dependent | Enabled, it is your IIS |
| Database | A quota on a shared SQL instance | SQL Server Express on the same box, or Standard |
| Access | A control panel | RDP, PowerShell, IIS Manager |
| Price | From about $4 a month | $28.99 a month, licence itemised |
One server can carry a .NET 10 API, a .NET 8 site and a Framework 4.8.1 application that predates all of it, each in its own application pool with its own identity. Side-by-side runtimes are normal on Windows, so an upgrade is a new pool rather than a migration project.
Sized by what the application does, not by tier names. Every total is compute plus the $15.00 Windows licence, the number that lands on your invoice, and every plan runs IIS with the Hosting Bundle and unmetered bandwidth.
One small site or API, low trafficTight with SQL Server on the same box
A site plus an API, SQL Server Express alongside
Production app with a real database and a worker service
Several apps, staging beside production, heavier SQL
SQL Server Standard on its own box, or a busy API tier
| Plan | Suits | NVMe | Compute | Windows | Total / mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU · 2 GB | One small site or API, low trafficTight with SQL Server on the same box | 50 GB | $13.99 | $15.00 | $28.99 | Deploy |
| 2 vCPU · 4 GB | A site plus an API, SQL Server Express alongside | 80 GB | $22.99 | $15.00 | $37.99 | Deploy |
| 4 vCPU · 8 GBMost deployed | Production app with a real database and a worker service | 120 GB | $40.99 | $15.00 | $55.99 | Deploy |
| 8 vCPU · 16 GB | Several apps, staging beside production, heavier SQL | 180 GB | $76.99 | $15.00 | $91.99 | Deploy |
| 8 vCPU · 32 GB | SQL Server Standard on its own box, or a busy API tier | 240 GB | $137.99 | $15.00 | $152.99 | Deploy |
Nothing about deployment is Raff-specific. Web Deploy from Visual Studio, a GitHub action, or msdeploy from your own build server. Certificates come free from Let's Encrypt through win-acme, which installs the binding and renews it on a schedule.
# publish from your machine dotnet publish -c Release -o .\publish # swap the folder and recycle the pool Stop-WebAppPool contoso-web Copy-Item .\publish\* C:\inetpub\contoso -Recurse -Force Start-WebAppPool contoso-web # certificate, first run and then automatic wacs.exe --target iis --host contoso.com --installation iis # Scheduled task 'win-acme renew' created # https binding added to contoso.com, expires 12 Nov
SQL Server Express on the same VPS. No network hop, no second licence, 10 GB per database. The usual choice under about 10 GB of data.
IIS on one, SQL Server on another, joined by a free VPC with port 1433 closed to the internet. Resize either one alone.
Shared hosting gives you a quota on someone else's SQL instance. Here you choose: SQL Server Express free on the same VPS under its 10 GB limit, or a second VPS on a private network when the load justifies it. You own the instance either way.
Short answers. The long ones live in the IIS guides.
$28.99 a month for the entry plan: $13.99 compute plus the $15.00 Windows Server licence, itemised on your statement. A site plus an API with SQL Server Express alongside fits $37.99, and the most deployed production size, 4 vCPU with 8 GB, is $55.99. Shared ASP.NET hosting is cheaper, from around $4 a month, because hundreds of sites share one Windows install and one IIS. The difference you are paying for is that the runtime, the trust level and the database are yours to decide.
No. The name moved: ASP.NET Core is the current framework and ships with each annual .NET release, and .NET 10 is the version to target today. What is winding down is the original ASP.NET on .NET Framework, still supported because 4.8.1 ships with Windows, but receiving no new features. On a Raff VPS both run side by side: a .NET 10 application in one pool and a Framework 4.8.1 application in another, on the same server.
Any that Windows Server supports, because you install them. ASP.NET Core 8, 9 and 10 through the .NET Hosting Bundle, which adds the ASP.NET Core Module to IIS, plus .NET Framework 4.8.1 for older applications. Side-by-side runtimes are normal on Windows, so each application pool targets its own version and an upgrade is a new pool rather than a migration. When Microsoft ships the next release you install it the same day.
There are free ASP.NET hosts and they suit a student project or a demo. The limits are the point: an old .NET version, a few hundred megabytes of space, a shared SQL quota, forced ads or sleeping sites, and no administrator access. Raff has no free tier. The entry Windows VPS is $28.99 a month with the licence itemised and the first 14 days are money-back, so you can deploy your actual application and decide with it running.
You install it, and SQL Server Express is free from Microsoft with a 10 GB per database limit that covers most line-of-business applications. It runs on the same VPS as IIS, so there is no network hop between the application and the data and no second licence. When a database outgrows Express, move to SQL Server Standard through Raff or put SQL Server on a second VPS joined by a free private network, with port 1433 closed to the internet.
The same way you would to any Windows Server. Web Deploy from Visual Studio with a publish profile, msdeploy from your own build server, or a GitHub action that copies the publish output and recycles the application pool. Nothing is Raff-specific and there is no proprietary CLI. For a zero-downtime swap, publish to a second folder and switch the site's physical path. Certificates come from Let's Encrypt through win-acme, which adds the https binding and renews on a schedule.
Shared hosting is the right answer for a brochure site on a .NET version the host already offers, and at around $4 a month it is genuinely cheaper. Choose a VPS when any of these is true: you need a .NET version the host has not installed, your code needs full trust, you run a worker service or scheduled job, you use SignalR or WebSockets, you want your own SQL Server instance and backups, or you need RDP to debug at two in the morning.
From $28.99 a month, $13.99 compute plus the $15.00 Windows licence. IIS and the .NET Hosting Bundle, administrator access, 14-day money-back guarantee.