The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Product decision · 2023–2026
Puck bets open source, not SaaS, will win React visual editing
Measuredco open-sourced Puck, an MIT React visual editor teams embed in their own apps; the 2023 Show HN drew 451 points and the repo shows 13.3k stars.
Measuredco
What the business is
Puck is an open-source visual editor for React: developers drop the Puck component into a React or Next.js app, register their own components and fields, and users drag and drop to edit pages; the measuredco GitHub org publishes it under MIT and sells hands-on support and consultancy.
How it started
Puck launched publicly with a 2023-09-05 Show HN post by the measuredco GitHub org: 'Show HN: Puck – Open-source visual editor for React'. The pitch was that Puck is the visual editor for React — a modular, open-source component that plays well with any React.js environment, including Next.js, so teams define their own components and fields, keep their own data and face no vendor lock-in. The post drew 451 points and 95 comments.
What happened
The project grew from a launch post into a widely adopted open-source tool. By the 2026-09-05 snapshot the repository showed 13.3k stars, 971 forks, 2,108 commits and 63 watchers, with documentation, a demo, a Discord server and an awesome-puck community repository; the package ships as @puckeditor/core and recipes now cover Next.js App Router static generation and React Router v7 dynamic routes. The repository page now lives under the puckeditor GitHub org, and the README keeps an explicit commercial layer: teams can book a discovery call for hands-on support and consultancy.
How it ended up
Still live as of the 2026-09-05 snapshot, with no shutdown, acquisition or pivot disclosed: the README still pairs the free MIT core with paid support and consultancy, and the repository keeps accumulating commits and community plugins.
Background
Puck is a modular, MIT-licensed, open-source visual editor for React, published by the measuredco GitHub org and launched on 2023-09-05 with a Show HN post that drew 451 points and 95 comments. The pitch: Puck is the visual editor for React — a component developers drop into their own React or Next.js app, register their own blocks and fields against, and let users drag and drop to edit pages built from the team's own components and data.
The bet was that React teams would rather embed an open editor they control than rent a closed SaaS page builder. Because Puck is just a React component, adoption does not require replatforming: teams define config with their own components and fields, save the structured data to their own database, and render through their own stack, with no vendor lock-in. The README pairs the free MIT core with a paid layer of hands-on support and consultancy.
Adoption followed: the 2026-09-05 GitHub snapshot shows 13.3k stars, 971 forks and 2,108 commits, plus documentation, a demo, a Discord server and an awesome-puck community repository of plugins. Recipes cover Next.js App Router static generation and React Router v7, and the repository now lives under the puckeditor GitHub org. No funding, revenue or shutdown has been disclosed; the project remains live with the same open-core-plus-services structure it launched with.
What has to be true
- Closed SaaS builders force React teams to hand over pages, components and data; an embeddable MIT editor removes that objection at the moment of evaluation.
- Because Puck is just a component, teams adopt it inside an existing React or Next.js app without replatforming, and create-puck-app makes the first working project minutes away.
- Bring-your-own-components means the editor grows with the design system the team already has; users drag and drop real app components, not generic templates.
- The MIT core is the funnel and the support and consultancy call is the sale, so adoption and revenue do not fight each other.
What can be applied
Open-source the core and sell what the core cannot be: an MIT editor that lets teams own their data earns adoption, while the publisher monetizes support and consultancy instead of lock-in.
Aftermath
As of the 2026-09-05 GitHub snapshot Puck is still actively developed and adopted: 13.3k stars, 971 forks and 2,108 commits, with docs, a demo, Discord and an awesome-puck plugin ecosystem, and the repository now lives under the puckeditor org. The README still describes the same bet — a free MIT core teams embed and own, with a discovery call for paid support and consultancy — and discloses no funding, revenue, shutdown or acquisition.
Sources
- Show HN: Puck – Open-source visual editor for React
- measuredco/puck — The visual editor for React (2026-09-05 snapshot)
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