The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Strategic decision · 2010–2026
Founder reclaims Video.js from its PE owner; v10 rewrite is 88% smaller
After private equity axed Video.js maintainers, founder Steve Heffernan rebooted the player with rival project leads — 88% smaller, 648 HN points
Video.js
What the business is
Open-source HTML5 video player used by billions of people monthly — the default way sites ship web video since the Flash-to-HTML5 transition.
How it started
Steve Heffernan built Video.js in 2010 to ease the Flash-to-HTML5 video transition. It grew into the web's default player — billions of plays a month on sites like Amazon.com, LinkedIn and Dropbox — but the codebase and APIs 'continued to reflect a different era of web development.' After private equity bought his old company and the new owner fired the maintainers, the project limped along with a skeleton crew on a dated architecture and no clear future.
What happened
In March 2026 Heffernan released v10.0.0 beta: a ground-up rewrite done in an unusual pairing of four open-source projects — Video.js, Plyr, Vidstack and Media Chrome — with combined ~75,000 GitHub stars. The default bundle shrank 88% vs v8 (66% with adaptive bitrate removed); a new composable SPF streaming engine makes a simple HLS player 19% of the old size; a minimal React player weighs under 5kB gzipped. Sam Potts (creator of Plyr, 29k stars) designed the new default skins. Mux — Heffernan's employer — stepped in to fund the work; Brightcove, which kept the project breathing for years, remains the VIDEO.JS trademark holder.
How it ended up
v10 beta shipped with GA targeted for mid-2026; the reboot consolidated four rival players' communities behind one modern codebase and repositioned Video.js as the reference player for the AI-agent web.
Background
Sixteen years ago Steve Heffernan built Video.js to drag the web from Flash to HTML5 video. It became the default video player of the open web — billions of plays every month on Amazon.com, LinkedIn and Dropbox — but the codebase aged badly: monolithic controllers, legacy-era APIs, a default skin shipped billions of times with minimal design. When private equity bought Heffernan's old company and fired the maintainers, the project was left with a skeleton crew and no path forward.
His answer, announced in the v10.0.0 beta of March 2026, was a ground-up rewrite — and an unprecedented alliance: the leads of Video.js, Plyr, Vidstack and Media Chrome (four projects with ~75,000 GitHub stars combined) rebuilt the player together. The default bundle is 88% smaller than v8 (66% with ABR removed); the new SPF streaming engine makes simple HLS just 19% of the old size; a minimal React player fits under 5kB gzipped. Plyr's creator Sam Potts designed the new skins.
The reboot turned structural weakness into a story: the Show HN post drew 648 points and 137 comments in a day, and the project's answer to 'who owns this?' — Mux funding the team, Brightcove keeping the trademark, the community owning the code — became the model other orphaned open-source projects pointed to.
What has to be true
- He converted conflict into co-authorship: instead of forking or fighting rivals, he brought Plyr, Vidstack and Media Chrome's leads into the rebuild — one project instead of four.
- File size was the developer pain he led with: players had crept past 1MB minified, so the 88%/66%/19% reductions gave every team a measurable reason to migrate.
- Open-source survival followed money: Mux paying for full-time maintainers is what made the rewrite possible — a reminder that a healthy sponsor-company often decides whether a beloved project lives.
- He was transparent about governance — Mux funds, Brightcove holds the trademark, contributors own the code — which made the reboot credible instead of a hostile takeover.
What can be applied
When a project you created is being run into the ground, the asset isn't the code — it's the community and the name. Recruiting rivals to co-author the reboot converted competition into momentum.
Aftermath
As of 2026-09-03 Video.js v10 remains in beta with GA targeted for mid-2026; the team is writing migration guides for v8, Plyr, Vidstack and Media Chrome, and expanding presets toward creator platforms, short-form and education players. The v8 default skin still ships billions of times a month while the beta plays catch-up on features like ads and settings menus. The bet — that one modern, composable player can win back the web — will be decided by whether production sites migrate in the second half of 2026.
Sources
- Show HN: I took back Video.js after 16 years and we rewrote it to be 88% smaller
- Video.js v10 Beta: Hello, World (again)
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card