Announcing v7 alpha (Your Help Needed!)
Published on May 11, 2026 by Evan Jacobs
styled-components just got a lot better, and the theme this year is vertical integration.
Software development in 2026 is an entirely different value proposition than in the past; libraries must now absolutely prove their weight, since vibe-coding is so easy and inlining small things into larger projects is more or less a prompt + time.
styled-components is rising to meet this new moment through a strategic reframe:
Software development in 2026 is an entirely different value proposition than in the past; libraries must now absolutely prove their weight, since vibe-coding is so easy and inlining small things into larger projects is more or less a prompt + time.
styled-components is rising to meet this new moment through a strategic reframe:
- CSS should work consistently cross-platform, with appropriate visuals for each.
- The library must seek to minimize its dependency surface to prevent supply chain attacks.
- The library must be so fast that it basically disappears in flame charts.
With this first v7 alpha, we have largely achieved these important and ambitious goals! However, there is more to do; React Native has numerous cross-platform gaps and styled-components has just the right lens and harness to advance the ecosystem in a way that benefits everyone. Just this week I opened three PRs against React Native itself that close text-decoration gaps that have been open since 2015. styled-components v7 is the lens that made those gaps visible.
To this end, my request: please consider a recurring donation to styled-components. I have a lot of energy to do this work, but need funding coming in to support the engineering time. Help s-c, help drive the mission of truly cross-platform apps forward!
To try out the v7 alpha, see the prerelease notes for breaking changes and other considerations and run:
# requires latest react (19.x) and/or react native (0.85 at time of writing)
npm i styled-components@test
I'm confused about the project and it's future now. The previous updates on OpenCollective and GitHub have the library put in maintenance mode for the last ~2 years, with teams and devs migrating to other solutions like vanilla-extract.
Hi, this was addressed in a prior post. In short, styled-components is here to stay.
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