Let’s not forget how Remix got here. It gained traction primarily by merging into the React Router repo, inheriting 11M dependents and a decade of credibility it didn’t earn. From there, it became a thin abstraction over React Router before going dark entirely with the now-famous “taking a nap” announcement.
Now it’s back. Not with stability, not with iteration, but with a declaration, “We’re doing our own thing.” No React. No compatibility. A fresh stack, built from scratch.
Why? That’s the real question.
Shopify reportedly acquired Remix for ~$40M. Maybe this is them pushing for something big and new to justify the investment. Or maybe it’s the founders wanting full-stack ownership and long-term lock-in. Or maybe, with the pressure off post-acquisition, this is just Rich People™ messing around with legacy projects instead of supporting their users.
The leaked version of this pivot was even more aggressive, it openly criticized React and dubbed the shift a “Declaration of Independence.” The blog post toned that down, but the core direction hasn’t changed. It’s still a move away from the ecosystem that gave them a user base, toward something inward-looking and self-defined.
They claim to still be maintaining React Router. But it’s the same team now split across two projects. That means both will slow down. One is legacy support mode, the other is vaporware until proven otherwise.
Meanwhile, others in the space are embracing the now. They’re solving the hard problems of 2025 head-on. They’re building with the current stack, improving developer experience, shipping usable features, and making the future better, not by erasing the past, but by working with it.
This isn’t thoughtful evolution, it’s a hard reset with unclear motives, launched by a team with less to lose than their users.
Trust is easy to lose in devtools. This is how you lose it.
I agree with your sentiment.
But how complext is react routing if it needs an entire dedicated team?
They likely won't touch it again (just like Next hasn't touched their IDE type safe plugin in a year).
They're simply purist craftsmen. They'll keep chasing "perfection" over practicality at any cost other than financial security.
but then, as I look into it, Remix is now actually React Router v7. that seemed odd, even though I knew the author was the same I was always under the impression that these are distinct projects.
but fine, perhaps the evolution of both has converged. I got too confused to invest time in the rewrite. now, seems like Remix is being rebooted?
all these changes over the years seem well intentioned, but it takes away confidence in investing time in these solutions. If the justification to rebrand completely to React Router was that there are no serious functional differences between it and Remix, having a hard time understanding why Remix is now in the picture again.
Now my read is they’re rebooting the Remix name to go their own way on the framework.
As a current Next and prior Remix dev, my rec is both are good in their own way. I wouldn’t hesitate to use react-router if it’s what you want to do.
I really wish there were more details around why they chose to start with a fork of Preact beyond just this sentence. Sort of a surprising decision to me.
people really just be raw posting whatever chatgpt spits out huh
