What Is VB.NET?

VB.NET is a Microsoft programming language, largely succeeded by modern .NET languages such as C#, that many organizations still use to run applications built during the .NET Framework era.

VB.NET applications sit in an awkward middle ground: newer than VB6 or classic ASP, but still tied to Microsoft's older .NET Framework architecture and increasingly disconnected from where current .NET development actually happens. Because VB.NET's architecture on .NET Framework is incompatible with modern, cross platform .NET, these applications can't simply be upgraded in place the way some other legacy platforms can.

We generally recommend a full rewrite to C# on modern .NET for VB.NET applications, since the underlying incompatibility with current .NET means an in place upgrade isn't a realistic option the way it is for some other legacy stacks. We preserve the original business logic carefully during that rewrite, since the value in these applications was never really the language, it was the years of accumulated business rules the application encodes, so capturing those accurately matters more than the speed of the conversion itself.