Some operations in web applications do not need to run directly during a user request. Daily reports, log cleanup, email queues and data synchronization can be handled as background tasks.

ASP.NET Core provides BackgroundService and IHostedService for this purpose. A class derived from BackgroundService can run while the application is alive. The ExecuteAsync method can contain a loop that performs work at defined intervals.

Resource management is important in background services. Long-running tasks should support cancellation tokens, errors should be logged and unexpected exceptions should not silently stop the service. Scoped dependencies should be resolved through IServiceScopeFactory.

BackgroundService is useful for small and medium background jobs. For advanced job scheduling, retries, dashboards or distributed processing, tools such as Hangfire may be more appropriate.

When used correctly, background services improve user experience by moving heavy work out of the request-response flow.