ASP.NET developers, how do you write personal projects?

Question

ASP.NET

Until recently, I wrote in PHP, and from the DBMS I used mysql and sqlite. All this was and is free. You buy a VPS and put there what you want from the above.
But here I ran into a different stack of technologies. Backend in C#, oracle DBMS. I do not know how much the company paid, whether it paid for my workplace. But I'm interested. I tried to find how much it all costs - mssql, iss, oracle, but it looks like the devil himself will break his leg there.
But what about personal projects? The IIS server is paid, the mssql subd is paid. Are there free developer editions for all of this? Have hosters that provide iis and mssql already bought some expensive licenses that they provide them in such a large amount?
Continuing the discussion:
For C# under unix there is mono. As a DBMS, I can also take mysql or postgresql. But will there be convenience when working with the entity framework for example? Will there be any problems later if I choose mono?
I just want to feel all the power and convenience of developing on the microsoft stack, since fate brought it together.
There are more questions than answers, so I decided to hear the opinion of living people.
In summary:
1. How much does IIS and mssql cost/do I need to buy for a company and for one developer? (Well, oracle, if anyone knows)
2. What are the alternatives for IIS and mssql?
3. Does anyone actually do personal projects on this?
4. Is it really possible to get ASP.NET MVC on a VPS with some unix and use postresql or mysql?

Answer 1

1. IIS is included in the delivery of Windows Server, you can look at prices in any online store. MSSQL comes separately and the prices are quite high, BUT there is an Express edition, which is enough for your small projects.
2. Today the .NET community (which is becoming open source) offers the OWIN technology ( owin.org/). Solutions based on this technology can be hosted on many popular operating systems without a dedicated web server, starting HTTP hosting directly from a console application. Even on Android, geeks ran an OWIN web server.
3. I do personal open source projects with zero software costs. Look at the statistics on public repositories like GitHub.
4. Really, using OWIN technology and MySQL data provider. I did this and the link works great.
Lyrics.
The .net technology stack I personally chose because of the wide range of features that come with decent performance. When I chose the platform, all Microsoft products were paid. But times have changed and the corporation is meeting developers, understanding the trends in the development world. I have been working with .net in the commercial field for 8 years, during which time I have never regretted my choice. Repeatedly confirmed confidence in .net in comparison with php, ruby, node on projects that I had to deal with. I think the main advantage of the platform is a very rich framework.