It is not essential to use the standard Web forms development model when developing with ASP.NET. Noteworthy frameworks designed for the platform include:
* [[Base One Foundation Component Library]] (BFC) is [[rapid application development|RAD]] framework for building .NET [[database]] and [[distributed computing]] applications.
* [[DotNetNuke]] is an open-source solution that provides both a web application framework and a content management system that allows for advanced extensibility through modules, skins, and providers.
* [[MonoRail (software)|Castle MonoRail]], an open-source [[model–view–controller|MVC]] framework with an execution model similar to [[Ruby on Rails]]. The framework is commonly used with [[Castle ActiveRecord]], an ORM layer built on [[NHibernate]].
