However, many people mean something more specific when they say AOT. They want a solution that has the following characteristics: extremely fast startup, no IL present (for size and obfuscation reasons), a JIT is (at most) optional, and binary size is as small as it can be. We use the term “native AOT” to describe that point on the AOT spectrum. The single file solution we have in .NET 5.0 doesn’t satisfy this definition of AOT.