>Between Python and .NET ecosystems, I'm more familiar with the former and, under equal conditions, would choose it over .NET.
I think one thing you need to do when creating a startup is, go with what you know (as you said). You want to decrease the risk that you're product is going to be blocked by encountering an edge case in a framework/language you don't know and you get stuck there for a long time. I am way more familiar with .NET than Python, but I use Python in my spare time and on side projects to build up those muscles.
If you're doing a startup and you want to go .NET, I don't think there's anything holding you back anymore. It's open source now, runs on Linux, and you don't have to pay a dime to develop with it. Microsoft will get you in that, it's WAY easier to pay a little bit to get Visual Studio Enterprise and to then hook that into Azure and all of a sudden you're paying them a ton of money. Yes, that's their master plan. But, no one is making you do that.
Where to stay away from .NET core: Lambdas. The startup time for Lambdas just isn't where it is for other languages, when I last looked at this. If someone has newer data to prove me wrong I'll freaking LOVE YOU FOREVER!
Anyway, depending on what and how you're building your startup, .NET maybe a great pick for you depending on your background. I wouldn't force myself to pick up a new ecosystem and do a startup if I was focused on delivering a product I wanted to deliver and not learning something new and cool.
Visual Studio Code is great and Jetbrains Rider is much cheaper and very capable. You can skip VS Enterprise for most projects, and the Professional version also costs a lot less if you just need advanced debugging.
Also Azure isn't really necessary at all considering the ubiquity of Docker and Kubernetes. I've been running .NET programs basically everywhere else other than Azure for a long time.
Microsoft makes is stupid easy to use Azure, but that doesn't preclude how easy it is to use other hosting. It's like, you can have an iPhone and a windows laptop, but it doesn't integrate AS well as iPhone and a Mac.
Great feedback, much appreciated! I'm familiar with Microsoft for Startups program and I'm still considering it, though currently it's not a priority. I agree with most of your thoughts above. Don't have experience with .NET-based Lambdas, though, so I don't have an opinion on that yet. As for what I'm building, well ... I'm building a comprehensive (read: large) and complex B2B enterprise SaaS platform focused on a particular multi-disciplinary scientific domain. I'm a solo founder and have technical (and research) background, including software development and IT architecture experience.
I don't know if this was the program we used, but you can get a LOT of free stuff from Microsoft as a startup. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/startups/
>Between Python and .NET ecosystems, I'm more familiar with the former and, under equal conditions, would choose it over .NET.
I think one thing you need to do when creating a startup is, go with what you know (as you said). You want to decrease the risk that you're product is going to be blocked by encountering an edge case in a framework/language you don't know and you get stuck there for a long time. I am way more familiar with .NET than Python, but I use Python in my spare time and on side projects to build up those muscles.
If you're doing a startup and you want to go .NET, I don't think there's anything holding you back anymore. It's open source now, runs on Linux, and you don't have to pay a dime to develop with it. Microsoft will get you in that, it's WAY easier to pay a little bit to get Visual Studio Enterprise and to then hook that into Azure and all of a sudden you're paying them a ton of money. Yes, that's their master plan. But, no one is making you do that.
Where to stay away from .NET core: Lambdas. The startup time for Lambdas just isn't where it is for other languages, when I last looked at this. If someone has newer data to prove me wrong I'll freaking LOVE YOU FOREVER!
Anyway, depending on what and how you're building your startup, .NET maybe a great pick for you depending on your background. I wouldn't force myself to pick up a new ecosystem and do a startup if I was focused on delivering a product I wanted to deliver and not learning something new and cool.