Blazor on .NET 8 - Ten Reasons why Blazor on .NET 8 is a Game Changer

In this vide I discuss 10 reasons why I think the new enhancements and new features released with .NET 8 are an absolute game changer.
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Full Video Series for Movie Review Blazor App on .NET 8
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🕐 Video Time Indexes
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00:00:00 - Introduction
00:04:22 - Server-side Rendering
00:07:35 - Streaming Rendering
00:09:45 - Enhanced Navigation and Form Handling
00:12:35 - Choose Render Mode at Runtime
00:15:30 - QuickGrid
00:17:53 - Improved Authentication
00:20:27 - Razor Component Result
00:21:15 - Generate Static HTML Content with Components
00:22:23 - The Introduction of Sections into Blazor
00:23:36 - Jiterpreter (Much Faster Blazor WebAssembly Components)
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[@MohamedOmar-zw2bq]

The Only way to make this framework popular and encourage developers to use it is that Microsoft should use it to build one of its heavily used products.

[@GavinLon]

That's an interesting point. I wonder if something like this is in the pipeline. Blazor is still a fairly new technology so perhaps Microsoft has plans to use Blazor in one of their heavily used products. Thanks for your comment :)

[@riyazvagapov1449]

@@GavinLon In my opinion, i guess, they should imprve tools for creatng components in vs cdoe or etc, for example like in react, tools for it just amazing, autocomplete and other. When i try to find this tools for blazor it's still doesnt work, mb my fall. Overmore, they should improve browser interaction, it's really bad inject jsruntime or smth like this. I see in the rust api like in js with interacting dom, it's cool. Sry for my english

[@GavinLon]

@@riyazvagapov1449 Thanks so much for your feedback - I could understand your English perfectly. That would be an interesting aspect to investigate further - Blazor vs React tools available for making development easier. :)

[@defoer3049]

you are such a nice person. It's always refreshing to see the interaction of a polite, nice person online. @@GavinLon

[@tanakamichael-dp1nb]

Your explanations are so clear and simple to comprehend. Excellent stuff.

[@GavinLon]

Thank you very much! Your comment is greatly appreciated! :)

[@DannysGalaxyTab]

My man, this video is amazing. Perfectly answered most of the questions I was wondering about blazor.

[@GavinLon]

Thank you for your very positive comment! I'm really happy that this video has answered most of your questions about Blazor :)

[@jsiahaan]

This video is very helpful, thank you so... so... so... much Gavin!

[@GavinLon]

You are very welcome! :)

[@evgeniilewicki5874]

Thank you. This is the best explanation of new products in Blazor.

[@GavinLon]

Thank you so much for your positive comment :)

[@deevvveed]

Great video, lots of cool stuff coming for Blazor

[@GavinLon]

Yes - very exciting! :) I'm particularly looking forward to working with Blazor after the official release of .NET 8 in November! :)

[@bryanpaderes8963]

Thanks, i love this kind of video❤

[@GavinLon]

You are very welcome! :)

[@pascalsi1]

Best explanation of Blazor I've seen so far

[@GavinLon]

Thank you! :) I appreciate your kind comment!

[@Anbu_Sampath]

Nicely explained. Hopefully Blazor get more traction.

[@GavinLon]

Thank you! :) Yes, indeed! I think Blazor is likely to get more traction in the coming years :)

[@ebarednaxela]

Thanks Gavin! ❤

[@GavinLon]

You are very welcome! :)

[@Marcin-cz1yo]

21:48 what is this hand thingy? Is this some video rendering app/addon which implements that? pls help

[@sgamage2644]

Great video ❤

[@GavinLon]

Thank you! :)

[@kuhaniresti]

how huge is the resource being sent to user for ssr?

[@paulgehrman]

I agree that .NET 8 adds many great features. What is still confusing to me is how the various render modes interact with each other. Things seemed a bit easier before .NET 8 when you only had to choose between wasm and server. In the past, I've used wasm and it worked well, but a new app in Blazor .NET 8 probably involves some combination of ssr, wasm, streaming, and maybe even server. Again, not really clear on how this all fits together.

[@GavinLon]

The various render modes (within one project) give the developer added flexibility, How you render a component depends on the context. So for e.g. for web pages that don't require much interaction functionality perhaps SSR and streaming rendering best applies to the component. For a component that requires intense computational functionality perhaps WebAssembly is the best option. Those are just a few examples. :)

[@johno8760]

GavinLon's reply is pretty spot on, it's not meant for you to "figure out what to do" with what Blazor .NET 8 gives you, but its just flexibility. Another example of a framework doing this is Next.js, where you can specify which things to render server side or client side relating to optimization decisions.

[@user-si5vu9ed8m]

Wasn't the streaming rendering available long back with ASP with http flushing, to avoid waitng for full page rendering.I mean its quite an old technology. Is websocket bad ?

[@GavinLon]

Streaming rendering is new with Blazor on .NET 8. Websocket is not bad at all. Signal-R works very well in the Blazor Framework :)

[@ahmettek315]

On one hand it is good if you are a windows only developer. On a mac I wonder what tool to use to develop with it. There is VS for Mac but with this notice on MS site: "Visual Studio for Mac is scheduled for retirement on August 31, 2024 in accordance with Microsoft’s Modern Lifecycle Policy. While you can continue to work with Visual Studio for Mac, there are several other options for developers on Mac such as the preview version of the new C# Dev Kit extension for VS Code." This reminds me the silverlight and MS tendency to kill products at will. What if we build with blazor and then MS decides it is the next thing to kill? (People were saying, no MS won't kill this and that and it happened over a night following some MS conference)

[@GavinLon]

Thank you for your comment. I enjoyed reading it. :) Developing Blazor applications using VS Code, C# Dev Kit coupled with the .NET SDK is a great development experience once you get used to it, in my opinion. Of course with using these technologies you have the huge benefit of cross platform development (where you can use Windows, Linux or MacOS as your operating system). In my opinion, Blazor is not comparable to silverlight - they are very different technologies. One of the biggest advantages of Blazor is that you can use it for the development of a full-stack applications where the backend and font-end are developed using one technology (.NET). I suspect Blazor will become the goto Microsoft web development framework. With the release of .NET 8 in particular you don't need any other technology to create full-stack applications (you can just base your project on the new Blazor Web App template). It really is a great technology and I hope it becomes very popular in the coming years.

[@ahmettek315]

@@GavinLon OK, being a C# and also Go guy, I have been doing web development in both (.Net framework, not core). I have a new non-profit project at hand and I might give this a try. I was leaning to Go for its speed and ease in doing web applications.

[@GavinLon]

@ahmettek315 Cool! I wish you the best of luck with your project! My choice would be .NET and Blazor but I would advise you to go with your instinct on which technology to choose. It really does depend on your protect's requirement and your personal context as to which technology you choose :)

[@krisztiantakacs6001]

I used PHP and JavaScript before found the possible way to develop in Blazor. It is much better to use this technology.

[@NeilDonkin]

Blazor is finally looking very mature in .NET 8

[@GavinLon]

I like how you put that! :)

[@xxXAsuraXxx]

So has it completely got rid of JavaScript interop yet? Or it still cant live without js?

[@GavinLon]

I think there'll always be a use case for JavaScript integration - at least of the foreseeable future for e.g. in my Blazor course where I demonstrate building a shopping cart application - there is no way around integrating the JavaScript based payment gateway functionality provided by PayPal. I don't think JavaScript interop functionality is going away :)

[@AthelstanEngland]

If you develop say a minimal Api against . net 8 framework a Windows PC, can you then deploy the solution to a server running .net core? I'm a bit lost on this.

[@GavinLon]

Although I have never deployed a minimal API to a server running .NET Core I suspect you'll encounter issues as I believe minimal API's were first introduced with .NET 6. I hope that helps :)

[@AthelstanEngland]

@@GavinLon ok thanks.

[@mortz16]

So basically it functions like JS meta frameworks like NextJS and SvelteKit?

[@GavinLon]

It means you can leverage a .NET SPA framework that now has similar capabilities as NextJS and Sveltekit and you also have the added benefit to leverage C# instead of JavaScript to create your SPA applications. You can seamlessly integrate powerful SPA applications created using .NET and C# into the .NET eco system.

[@Anbu_Sampath]

That's my exact thought when read more about it. Only difference is instead of JS, C# used.

[@midnightloverdog]

Same thng was said in .Net 7

[@GavinLon]

That is not true. Blazor on .NET 8 is a significant upgrade.

[@midnightloverdog]

@@GavinLon Still the slowest framework compared to Angular, React, Vue

[@GavinLon]

@@midnightloverdog Thanks, I appreciate your feedback :)

[@emreaka3965]

jiterpreter kinda joke to me ngl :) I would probably use SSR with WASM. SignalR is not my go to.

[@GavinLon]

Please check out this web page for a more detailed explanation of jiterpreter - devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/asp-net-core-updates-in-dotnet-8-preview-2 :)

[@nil70n]

Looks good, but I would not use. Feels like trying to code a nextjs application using c#. HTMX is the most exciting stuff in the last few years because it removes complexity instead of adding stuff from other frameworks.

[@GavinLon]

HTMX is certainly an interesting technology. I look forward to doing a deep dive video on HTMX.

[@evelop3625]

The main problem with Blazor is that it is not popular and this will not be solved by .Net 8 or the following versions. Most front-end developers are interested in learning JS and some related framework. So .Net 8 will not be a game changer. If in the end no one uses Blazor, Microsoft will start using other frameworks like React or Angular and will leave Blazor aside.

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for your comment. I would argue that it can be seen as a game changer in many ways (not just in the competitive sense). At the very least, it is still providing .NET developers with amazing new features and enhancements. Hopefully it will become a lot more popular because it really is an excellent framework. :)

[@KapnKregg]

As a longtime JS/TS developer with React, Vue, Angular and many other frameworks, I recently gave C# and Blazor a shot and developed a small application. I actually loved the experience. It almost felt *too* easy to make an app, almost like "what's the catch?". Hopefully more people will be open minded and give it a chance.

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for your feedback. :) In my opinion Blazor is an excellent technology and hopefully it will grow in popularity in the coming years. The release of .NET 8 is a game changer in more than one way, not just in the way of being competitive with other SPA technologies - it adds a lot of new features and enhancements that will provide Blazor developers with greater flexibility - for e.g. the option to choose between render modes.

[@paulgehrman]

Zero chance Microsoft ever starts using Angular or React. Everyone I know who has tried Blazor has no interest in going back to the masochism that is Angular. React is better, but still much harder to work with, debug, etc.

[@paulgehrman]

@@KapnKregg Yeah, I felt the same way at first, too easy. To me, the greatest benefit is the ease of debugging, especially compared to Angular.

[@CarrigansGuitarClub]

I've been hearing all this "Blazor is the next best" thing since Silverlight.....it's just not catching fire!!!!

[@GavinLon]

Dotnet 8 is a huge upgrade for Blazor so I think with greater awareness about the new features and enhancements - Blazor (in my opinion) is likely to gain a lot more popularity :)

[@oksen1990]

@@GavinLon I agree with you, Microsoft is doing much to make Blazor a viable alternative to the usual suspects (React, Angular, Vue, Svelte etc.). One of the most commonly-mentioned advantages that I've been hearing from my friends and colleagues is that they can work less with JS/TS and more with .NET/C#. As a developer who has primarily worked with both AngularJS and Angular 2+, this is one of the reasons why I'm interested in learning Blazor.

[@GavinLon]

@@oksen1990 Sounds great! Also from an organisation's perspective where the organisation is heavily invested in the .NET eco system - Blazor is a far better choice for SPA application development than investing in training in-house .NET developers in JavaScript based SPA frameworks or hiring new JavaScript based SPA developers or contractors. Blazor is also well supported by Microsoft and likely to evolve in step with new innovations in SPA frameworks.

[@oksen1990]

@@GavinLon Yes, and seeing as many corporations in my country, Denmark - both smaller and larger - have invested in .NET ecosystem for backend and sometimes for the DevOps, I think Blazor makes a lot of sense. I 100% agree with you that Microsoft is heavily invested in Blazor being the frontend framework for .NET applications, both now and in the future.

[@missionyoungblood]

Trust me when I say; getting to my goal is putting me truly in Gavin Lons debt...I will reimburse you with more than a few Coffee's as you are invaluable to anyone learning C#.

[@GavinLon]

I'm so glad that you feel that you are benefiting from the videos. :) Thank you for your kind comment! More content is coming soon!

[@missionyoungblood]

Your more than welcome, feel like it is us who should be thanking you!@@GavinLon

[@richardaubin1951]

Did you AI your voice?

[@GavinLon]

No, there is absolutely no AI used in my videos - that is my natural voice. :)

[@richardaubin1951]

@@GavinLon ok :) It's only strange because of the pauses that seem unnecessary at times. I'll take your word for it ;)

[@paulliner6017]

I dont know, to me the script feels like an ai article read out by an ai language, maybe the ai also manages the chat, so he is actually not lying when he claims its his own authentic voice 😂 @@richardaubin1951 Edit: Oh shoot, I found a typo.. maybe he just immitates ai videos 🤦‍♂

[@missionyoungblood]

My friend thought the same thing when we were viewing some of Gavins other vids....I was comprehensive when I inferred it believe it to be natural!! gonna tell my mate later😎 🙃

[@user-senseiPM]

Almost like in Web Forms... in past.

[@GavinLon]

With respect - Blazor is very different from Web Forms :)

[@ookookook]

1 word: silverlight. Not getting on this blazor hype train.

[@GavinLon]

I have no incentive to hype up Blazor. I really do believe it is a fantastic technology - and .NET 8 includes some excellent enhancements and new features.

[@ookookook]

@@GavinLon Yup - really been happy with .NET releases since Core, and looking forward to 8 myself.

[@WorldSmu]

Microsoft always create white elephant experiments.

[@daveharruk]

As a .NET developer I'd love to be able to agree with this, but in reality there is not one single "game changer" feature here - literally everything is already available in competing technologies. The only unique features for .NET developers are available in Uno and Avalonia which are unfortunately hampered by frustratingly poor documentation. Perhaps it doesn't matter that it isn't superior to that available in JavaScript land, but when we've been spoilt by C#, .NET Core and Web API, it just seems that Blazor (and MAUI) are going nowhere fast.

[@GavinLon]

This channel is all about learning so I do really value your comment even though you clearly disagree with what is promulgated in the video... :) Thanks for your comment.

[@TrOgaN_]

Except it's not a game changer, it's a broken system with pre-rendering issues and interactive modes that don't work without being hacked.

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for your feedback. I will be going through these new features in the near future in a practical way so we can assess any issues that may arise and discuss them.

[@alensiljak]

Game changer? What is the game?

[@GavinLon]

lol - it's just an expression :) It is a massive positive change for the Asp.NET Core framework - and Blazor can now, in my opinion, compete with the popular JavaScript based SPA frameworks.

[@alensiljak]

@@GavinLon I thought so, too, based on the title. However, these changes make it more of a destination for the current MVC and WebForms applications rather than for other PWA/SPA frameworks. I mean, it was already a relatively decent and growing competitor in that field. These changes seem mostly server-related, which is outside the realm of SPAs.

[@GavinLon]

@@alensiljak Streaming rendering for e.g. allows for Server-side rendering to be used for Blazor applications while allowing for asynchronous loading of content hindered by long running operations (using http request/response model). So the responsiveness or SPA effect (if you like) is preserved and the benefits of SSR can also be included in Blazor applications. Enhanced Form Handling and navigation also meansthat Blazor applications can now include Server side rendering and all the benefits that come with server side rendering (e.g. better SEO) as well as the benefits inherent in SPA applications - like the fast asynchronous responsiveness provided through the implementation of Blazor WebAssembly or Blazor Server compoments. Including all of these features in one Blazor project (through the Blazor Web App project template) are just a few massive upgrades to Blazor. Dotnet 8 really does mean a huge upgrade to Blazor - which in my opinion could be described as a game changer :)

[@fayazvar3948]

Are you kidding me, now it is like U turn.

[@GavinLon]

With the release of .NET 8, Microsoft is including features that you currently get with Razor Pages and MVC (like Server side rendering) with the already existing SPA features (Blazor Server and Blazor WebAssembly) within one framework, the Blazor framework. You can now leverage Server side rendering, streaming rendering, Blazor Server (Signal-R) and Blazor WebAssembly from within one Project. This is made easy through leveraging the new Blazor Web App project template (which can only run on .NET 8).

[@ghaznavipc]

SSR in blazor stands for Static-Server Rendering. Don't confuse it with SSR in JS frameworks. *EDIT:* My reference: kzbin.info47CZqb53nCM?feature=shared&t=3900

[@GavinLon]

There is no confusion. SSR stands for Server-side rendering in Blazor. devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/asp-net-core-updates-in-dotnet-8-preview-6

[@hugochavez6170]

I experimented with Blazor in September 2020. it was terrible. There millions of open source Javascript libraries components widgets gadgets etc. which allows you do develop every kind of ui applications. Who uses Blazor for UI commits suicide.

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for your comment. Blazor in 2024 is going to be very different from Blazor in 2020 :) It is evolving rapidly and is part of a super robust, versatile eco system that has the support of a growing community and Microsoft! React and Next.js are great but so is Blazor. There is a lot of investment by Microsoft in Blazor, so it is only going to get better.

[@hugochavez6170]

@@GavinLon In fact, the idea to use one language for both backend and frontend development is not that bad. I changed to another company in the mid of 2020. I came from fullstack web development with PHP in backend and Javascript &co. in frontend. I was rather a backend developer indeed. So I started to learn C# at the new employer and evaluated Blazor. The parallel use of Javascript was extremely terrible. The open source frameworks libraries for Blazor were buggy and to some extend restricted. I left the company mid 2022 and one team was using all Microsoft tech stack. The last positive thing I heard about and experimented with Blazor was the hot reload feature, which was buggy. For me frontend development was even with Razor Pages a nightmare. After every single change in HTML I had to recompile the whole project. That's why I created a separate project only for UI and used the live server plugin of VS Code. At the end migrated the HTML to Razor templates. It was so big time consuming workaround. On the other hand, all the frontend developers , who I know, were not ready to learn C# at all. They hated it though due to the complexity. They were admired by Javascript and its simplicity. 😊 The microservices architecture and container technology on the other hand allow companies build their software with very different techstack. I believe it is not possible to convince and gain the majority of the frontend developers for Blazor. So many companies would not make themselves dependent on very few Blazor developers and prefer or give chance to Javascript developers. IMO the Blazor UI is a wrong strategy by the Microsoft. They could bring a framework like Google Angular to the market with full integration of TypeScript, which had better chance to gain Javascript developer on the market.

[@path_selector]

LMAO this isnt a human speaking... is it?

[@path_selector]

ok after reviewing other videos... this is a human sorry

[@henryvaneyk3769]

Blazor will go nowhere and die out just like Silverlight. HTMX and Rust is the way top go.

[@GavinLon]

Thanks for your feedback. I suspect HTMX will become more and more popular but I certainly don't agree that Blazor will die out. I also think Rust is a great technology.

[@henryvaneyk3769]

@@GavinLonIt will probably not die out. Many companies will use it in-house for their own web portals, but I just do not see it go mainstream like JS and React is now. Hell even PHP sites refuse to die out and will be with us for a long time because of it's huge base.

[@GavinLon]

@henryvaneyk3769 I understand what you are saying but I think Blazor has a tremendous amount of potential especially based on the new features and enhancements that have been shipped with .NET 8. It'll be interesting to see what happens :)

[@adam-xt8te]

Microsoft reinvented PHP

[@GavinLon]

Blazor is primarily a SPA framework and PHP is not. Blazor on .NET 8 has incorporated many new features into the Blazor framework that means you can combine some of the benefits available in PHP like SSR into your .NET 8 Blazor applications as well as leverage the high speed responsiveness of SPA technologies. So Blazor at this stage is more similar to a technology like Next.js rather than a technology like PHP.

[@zikkrype]

Blazor sucks. There are isn't a lot of plugins to solve trivial tasks. You need to learn a lot of it's tags and specifications instead of concentrating on ui

[@GavinLon]

I respectfully disagree - but thank you for your feedback :) Blazor is getting better and better, and this trend is no doubt going to continue :)