Today, we are thrilled to announce the General Availability (GA) of Managed Instance on Azure App Service. Following the tremendous response to our Public Preview announcement at Ignite 2025, we've spent the past nine months working closely with customers, partners, and the community to harden the platform, expand capabilities, and validate real-world enterprise migration scenarios. Managed Instance on Azure App Service is now ready for your production workloads, backed by a full enterprise SLA.
The journey from Preview to GA
Since November 2025, thousands of customers have used the public preview to move workloads that were previously "stuck" on-premises or on aging Windows Server VMs. The feedback has been unmistakable: Managed Instance on Azure App Service dramatically shortens the path to the cloud for legacy and complex .NET Framework applications often removing the need for code changes entirely.
Enterprises across various sectors like financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and the public sector migrated applications that depended on GAC assemblies, COM components, Windows Services, registry configuration, and mapped network drives apps that historically required expensive re-platforming or a full rewrite. With Managed Instance on Azure App Service, these workloads now run on a fully managed PaaS platform, side-by-side with modern cloud-native apps.
What's new at GA
Building on the preview foundation of configuration scripts, registry adapters, storage mounts, and RDP via Azure Bastion, GA brings several important additions:
- Production SLA (99.95%) – Full enterprise-grade availability commitment across all supported regions.
- Expanded regional availability – Available in at least 8 Azure regions worldwide at GA with continued expansion planned through the remainder of 2026.
- Deeper Premium v4 integration – Managed Instance now takes full advantage of the Premium v4 App Service Plan tier for enhanced performance, memory-optimized SKUs, and improved price-performance.
- Zone redundancy – Deploy Managed Instance workloads across Availability Zones for higher resiliency without additional configuration effort.
- Enhanced observability – First-class integration with Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and Log Analytics, including instance-level metrics for CPU, memory and disk.
- Improved configuration script experience – Faster startup times, richer diagnostics when scripts fail, versioning support for configuration bundles, and streamlined rollback.
- Managed Identity everywhere – All secrets, storage connections, and Key Vault references at GA use Managed Identity by default, eliminating stored credentials from your deployment pipelines.
- Azure Policy and Defender for Cloud coverage – Governance, compliance, and threat protection controls now apply to Managed Instance the same way they apply to standard App Service workloads.
- Bicep, Terraform, and ARM templates – Full IaC support with new resource providers and modules for repeatable, auditable deployments.
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GitHub Copilot Modernization - Deep Integration with GitHub Copilot modernization for Application assessment targeting Managed Instance on App Service https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/azure/migration/appmod/working-with-assessment
Why customers are choosing Managed Instance on Azure App Service
The core value proposition remains the same and it's stronger than ever at GA:
1. Lift-and-Improve legacy applications
Migrate .NET Framework apps with hardcoded file paths, COM dependencies, GAC entries, or registry access with no major code rewrites. Install custom components directly on the managed instance using configuration scripts.
2. Re-platform hard-to-modernize apps
Move applications with lost source code, legacy middleware (MSMQ, SMTP servers, third-party runtimes), or tight infrastructure coupling. Managed Instance removes the blockers that historically forced these apps to stay on VMs.
3. Hybrid and regulated workloads
Integrate securely with on-premises resources using VNet integration and private endpoints. Enforce data residency, Bring Your Own Storage, and Managed Identity–backed access controls to meet finance, healthcare, and government compliance requirements.
4. Incremental modernization
Start with "lift and Improve" then adopt PaaS features like DevOps automation, autoscaling, deployment slots, and centralized configuration at your own pace. Future-proof your portfolio without a big-bang transformation.
What customers are saying
During preview, we saw real numbers:
- Migration timelines cut from months to weeks for apps that would otherwise have required substantial refactoring.
- Zero code changes for a significant share of preview workloads that previously blocked App Service adoption.
- Reduced infrastructure footprint as customers consolidated Windows Server VMs onto managed App Service Plans with zone redundancy and autoscaling built in.
We are grateful to every preview customer whose feedback shaped this release.
Pricing and licensing
Managed Instance on Azure App Service is billed as a capability on top of the Premium v4 App Service Plan. There is no separate Managed Instance surcharge at GA you pay for the underlying Premium v4 compute you consume. Existing App Service reservations, savings plans, and any other Azure Benefit all apply, helping you optimize the total cost of ownership as you migrate.
Getting started
Getting started is straightforward:
- Assess your workload using Azure Migrate's updated App Service assessment, which now flags candidates ideal for Managed Instance.
- Create a new Web App using the Managed Instance on Azure App Service option in the Azure Marketplace, or via Bicep, Terraform, or the Azure CLI.
- Package your dependencies into a configuration bundle (a zip file plus a PowerShell install script) and store it in Azure Storage. Grant access via Managed Identity.
- Configure registry values, storage mounts, and networking to match your on-premises environment.
- Deploy your application using the same App Service deployment mechanisms you already know—ZIP deploy, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, or Visual Studio publish.
- Operate with confidence use RDP over Azure Bastion for deep troubleshooting when you need it, and Azure Monitor for everything else.
Resources
- 📘 Managed Instance on Azure App Service documentation
- 🎥 Technical Deep Dive session recording from Build 2026
- 🧭 GitHub Repo with sample configuration scripts, webapp and guidance for Managed Instance on App Service workloads
Looking ahead
GA is a milestone, not a finish line. On our roadmap we're already working on:
- Deeper integration with Azure Migrate's web app discovery and assessment capabilities to help identify web apps suitable for migration to Managed Instance on App Service
- Enhanced migration tooling with easier dependency detection and one-click configuration bundle generation.
- Expanded Rollout to Azure Regions across 2026 and beyond.
- Continuously Release new features and capabilities to make migrations easier and faster than ever before
We can't wait to see what you build and what you migrate. Managed Instance on Azure App Service is here to make your modernization journey faster, simpler, and more secure than ever.
Welcome to GA. 🚀
The Azure App Service Team
Microsoft