ASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. ASP.NET is built on the Common Language Runtime (CLR), allowing programmers to write ASP.NET code using any supported .NET language. The ASP.NET SOAP extension framework allows ASP.NET components to process SOAP messages.

After the release of Internet Information Services 4.0 in 1997, Microsoft began researching possibilities for a new Web application model that would solve common complaints about ASP, especially with regard to separation of presentation and content and being able to write "clean" code. Mark Anders, a manager on the IIS team, and Scott Guthrie, who had joined Microsoft in 1997 after graduating from Duke University, were tasked with determining what that model would look like. The initial design was developed over the course of two months by Anders and Guthrie, and Guthrie coded the initial prototypes during the Fall of 1997.