Styled components entering maintenance mode - how is A12 dealing with that?

[bjoern-quantum-vale]

I came across this post https://x.com/mxstbr/status/1908201327811059926 which describes that styled-components is no longer getting new features. A good read on that note is RIP Styled-Components. Now What?. Styled-components are officially in… | by Fotis Adamakis | Apr, 2025 | Medium

My question is what this means for the A12 widget library? I’m aware the post was made last Friday. So the news is very fresh.

Best
Björn

[tjorben-atomic-moss]

Heyho,

It’s quite interesting that styled-components is moving into maintenance mode. I suppose the best approach for is to wait and see how things will go. I can imagine that there might be individuals or even companies interested in taking over the repository (or forking it) to continue its development.

I’m asking myself what exactly does maintenance mode mean in this case ? Will the compatibility to the latest React version will be ensured and bugs fixed ? Can imagine that the library is maybe feature complete and matured enough to go into a maintenance mode ? Alternatively, it might be worth considering a switch to one of the frameworks you’ve suggested as a potential long-term solution.

Happy regards,
Tjorben

FYI: here’s the GitHub issue marking the transition of the repository into maintenance mode → Make it clear that the project is in "maintenance mode" · Issue #5573 · styled-components/styled-components · GitHub

[torsten-static-bluff]

Quote from [1]:

React moved on.

React is deprecating parts of its API (like the legacy context API) that styled-components depended on. > No upgrade path, no workaround. The library is stuck.

I don’t expect development will continue in a fork, as there is no upgrade path [0], [1] - it will break as soon as React does remove the deprecated context API.

[0] Thank you - Open Collective
[1] RIP Styled-Components. Now What?. Styled-components are officially in… | by Fotis Adamakis | Apr, 2025 | Medium

[danting-misty-mist]

The question from my site here is whether A12 want to keep this runtime solution? What RIP Styled-Components. Now What?. Styled-components are officially in… | by Fotis Adamakis | Apr, 2025 | Medium recommends, are all compile time solutions. If the runtime solution is to remain, then Emotion might be a good option for transitioning to.

[binh-deep-cache]

Hi everyone, my two cents around this topic:

• styled-components is in maintenance mode, what does it really mean? It means no new features, only bug fixes. After the announcement, there were two new releases including some bug fixes (Releases · styled-components/styled-components · GitHub). So in this regard, the library is not abandoned. It is working fine with client side React, and will continue working unless React also decide to remove Context API on client side which I highly doubt.
• The drama of Context API is around React Server Component. This is not just about styled-components, but A12 has many of its functionality built around Context API, e.g. localization. To make it short, A12 is not prepared to be used on React Server Component.
• The community is not settled yet on how to move on. Like @tjorben-atomic-moss said, it’s probably best to wait and see how the community will move on. Material UI team created GitHub - mui/pigment-css: Pigment CSS is a zero-runtime CSS-in-JS library that extracts the colocated styles to their own CSS files at build time. as their solution to replace emotion, but the development seems stalled.

Nevertheless, I’m researching on build time alternative like Linaria, which is currently used at AirBnB. There is also modern features in CSS like CSS Custom Properties (a.k.a CSS Variables), that we could utilize to be less dependent on Runtime dependency. However, A12 Widgets is a huge code base will complex requirements, so it will take time to evaluate.

[binh-deep-cache]

Hi everyone,

Look like the wait is worthy. There is new styled-components release with RSC support: Release styled-components@6.3.0 · styled-components/styled-components · GitHub

I have not dive into detail how it affects us and how do we benefit from it, yet.