Deploy a .NET Web App to Azure using Visual Studio

How to use Visual Studio to deploy a .NET Web App to Azure. Install Visual Studio 2019. Create an ASP.Net Web Application project and publish the Web app to Azure.

Install Visual Studio 2019

Install .NET Framework 4.8
Developer pack
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/net48

Install Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads

Add the ASP.NET and web development workload

Tools - Get Tools and Features

Create a new project

File - New - Project

Select an ASP.Net Web Application project template

Enter the project name and select the .NET Framework version

Select MVC then click Create

Run the web app locally for testing

Debug - Start Without Debugging

The home page will open. Note it's running on localhost.

Publish the Web App to Azure

Right click the project - Publish

Target - Azure

Specific target - Azure App Service (Windows)

Sign in to Azure

Choose your subscription and resource group, then select the Azure Web app and click Finish.

Web App is ready to publish

Click Publish

The website will open in a browser. Note the Web app is using the generic domain name app.azurewebsites.net and is using HTTP. In the next steps, we will add a custom domain to the website and secure it with an SSL certificate.

Web app running in the Azure portal