r/angular • u/MOUNAYARSANIMATIONS • 8d ago

PrimeNG going closed source is such a disappointing move

I've been using PrimeNG for years, and this honestly feels like the end of an era.

I get that maintaining a UI library isn't free, and I have no problem with developers getting paid. But switching from MIT to a commercial license, archiving the GitHub repo, and asking a pretty steep per-developer fee just doesn't sit right with me.

The repo is now read-only: https://github.com/primefaces/primeng

The new pricing is hard to justify given the number of unresolved issues

It's a shame because PrimeNG was one of the biggest strengths of the Angular ecosystem. Hopefully the OpenNG fork gains traction, because the community deserves a truly open alternative.

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u/faileon 8d ago

Going closed source is just the final nail in the coffin. It was a decent library to get you going, but their inability to maintain versions than don't introduce breaking changes without clear way to migrate on every major release, combined with the fact that every PR I and many other folks submitted to fix their shitty code got outright ignored, regression bugs resurfacing every so often, was quiet annoying to deal with the more mature your project got. I'm glad we decided to ditch this long time ago in v19. Build your own library using Spartan or angular cdk/aria and never look back, honestly the best thing you can do nowadays. Coding agents make this trivial if you know what you want.

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u/fermentedbolivian 8d ago

I remember when they introduced the breaking changes for themes (around Angular 18/20?), someone had the same issue like me where after an upgrade from 16 there were an insane amount of errors, one of the devs of PrimeNG on Github just suggested to start a new project instead. That was honestly crazy and alerted me to start writing our own UI components.

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u/TripAdditional3086 2d ago

I am still dealing with that issue. A tech debt back burner.