My SignalR app now starts in 180ms — thanks to a 25MB AOT binary.

I replaced the .NET runtime with a 25MB SignalR binary and dropped cold starts to 180ms. ⚡

Turns out, Native AOT in .NET 9 isn’t just for console apps anymore.

Most real-time .NET apps ship bloated containers, thinking SignalR needs the full runtime.

That’s what we believed… until customer complaints started piling up.

Our SignalR-based Azure Functions were slow.

Startup took 2.3s, memory use hit 150MB, and image sizes ballooned to 180MB.

Deployments were clean, but performance was painful.

Then we tried trimming + Native AOT + minimal API hosting.

The result? A single 25MB self-contained binary, 45MB RAM usage, 180ms startup.

Cold starts in our Azure Functions dropped significantly, and image sizes shrank by 85%.

Native AOT is a game-changer for real-time .NET apps.

💭 Are you still shipping full .NET runtimes for SignalR apps — or have you tried going fully native?

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