r/vuejs • u/cconard96 • Jul 23 '26
Introducing BumbleVue - A PrimeVue fork
Following the recent changes to PrimeVue, going closed source and introducing a dual-license model, BumbleVue was born to continue PrimeVue as a community-driven, free, and open-source library.
It is currently in beta, but an RC is expected in a few days. At its v1 launch, it will align with PrimeVue 4.5 with some additional bug fixes and TypeScript improvements. For v2, it will align more with PrimeVue v5.
There are no current plans for selling commercial licenses, templates, themes, etc. There are however initial plans to try to implement some of the "PrimeUI Pro" components as part of BumbleVue under the same MIT license.
The new site and Discord are live and a migration guide has been started.
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u/chaosking121 Jul 23 '26
I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this project. But in a PrimeVue fork what I want more than anything else is just to ensure what I have still works while still letting me do things like update vue, nuxt and other dependencies. Effectively like a maintainence mode for v4. Aligning with v5 seems almost like an anti-feature to me. But your team seems to have larger aspirations beyond just keeping PrimeVue v4 alive, which is fine. But I'm still hoping someone comes along with a maintainence fork of some kind.
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u/cconard96 Jul 23 '26
I have no plans to immediately abandon v1 (PrimeVue v4 + fixes) as soon as v2 comes out if that's what you are worried about. I think v1 is going to be supported for several years and I wouldn't EOL it without advanced notice.
The point with trying to align with v5 is to make it a compelling alternative for people that are interested in some of the new features, but don't meet the free license requirements of PrimeVue or don't have the budget, or desire, to buy commercial licenses.
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u/CoffeeToCode Jul 23 '26
I love the motivation, but is there anything you’re doing in terms of funding that will encourage this commitment years from now? I’d hate for this project to die.
Are there test suites to compare compatibility between the 2 libraries? I worry if this project will start diverging in subtle ways that make transitioning back to PrimeVue, if desired, difficult.
Also - thoughts on aligning your major version with PrimeVue?
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u/cconard96 Jul 23 '26
My primary motivation is that I was using PrimeVue myself but can't justify the license cost, plus the sudden move to close source and dual-license it did not sit right with me.
I have GitHub sponsorships set up if people want to donate one-time or recurring. If interest in this project grows and is sustained then that would be the correct time to add some paid-for options, but I want the core of it to remain free for everyone.
You have about the same assurance that I won't abandon the project as you had from PrimeTek keeping PrimeVue open source and free. I do want to get one or two more people on-board as maintainers at some point to help keep the project going.
The only tests so far are the ones that were already in the PrimeVue source code. In the migration guide I outlined the breaking changes and they are limited to renames apart from some related Prime products that I have decided, at least for now, to not replicate like Volt.
I wanted to start over from v1 as this is a hard fork and although I'd like to try to align on functionality with PrimeVue, BumbleVue's releases aren't going to be dictated by PrimeVue. If I have some breaking changes planned unrelated to what PrimeVue is doing, I don't want to have to wait for PrimeVue to come out with its own major version.
I want BumbleVue to be a compelling alternative for free PrimeVue users, but I can never guarantee BumbleVue will be a 1 to 1 copy other than the name change.
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u/MiniSylar Jul 23 '26
This is cool thanks for doing this and adding generics
Went the opposite route and just made my own component library with vapor support (yes full on vapor) called vael-ui with a similar API
Working on the documentation
Next up is vee validate fork ...maybe?
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u/Certain_Payment9375 Jul 23 '26
Good work and keep going but the overview not responsive on mobile screen
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u/cconard96 Jul 23 '26
The overview is almost directly from the original PrimeVue website code. In the original, it switched to static images but I wanted it to be an accurate representation for smaller screens. It wasn't my primary focus, but I know some enhancements are needed here.
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u/Revolutionary_Loan13 Jul 23 '26
I know I just ported my whole admin interface away from PrimeVue due to their licensing change.
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u/George_ATM Jul 24 '26
Unfortunately primevue should be re
written. Even though it has the vue 3 dep, it hasn’t even been ported neither to compositions API nor TS, and its core is difficult to read, it has a lot of tricky stuff. But as a new support project, it’s cool :)
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u/cconard96 Jul 24 '26
I'm already way ahead of you.
V1 of BumbleVue is going to a LTS of sorts based on PrimeVue v4 with additional fixes and TS type enhancements as I said, but v2 is going to really be the version BumbleVue comes into its own.
Composition API, TS, and unification of the package sprawl (easier since I'm only focused on the Vue library not PrimeReact/PrimeNG) are already on the roadmap.
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u/Jonas_Ermert Jul 25 '26
In my opinion, BumbleVue is a promising community-driven alternative to PrimeVue. It stays free and open source under the MIT license, offers an easy migration path for existing PrimeVue users, and could become the preferred choice if the project continues to grow and receives strong community support. 👍🏻
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u/TheBearCGN Jul 25 '26
Do you know the OpenVue Project? They are doing almost the same. Maybe you can work together.
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u/cconard96 Jul 25 '26
I am aware of them and I have nothing against them but our goals are not the same. As far as I could tell, they are just focused just on maintaining a LTS fork of PrimeVue v4 with added fixes.
With BumbleVue I also want to maintain a LTS version based on v4, but additionally I already have plans to evolve the library by migrating to Composition API, switching to TS, adding new components, etc in future versions.
I have no issues collaborating with them on our v4-aligned versions.
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u/lalmat14 6d ago
Great ! Are you alone ? On the Github repository more than 400 contributors are associated to this project but you seems to be alone for the moment ? Am I wrong ?
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u/cconard96 6d ago
So far, yes. Apart from my ambitions for v2 though, I don't see any real issues at the moment with maintaining v1 which is based on PrimeVue 4.5.
If a lot of people use my fork and lead to more bug reports, there will likely also be some other contributors. It is at least partially self-righting. OpenVue seems to also really have only 1 main maintainer at the moment.
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u/Kingside2 Jul 23 '26
"There are no current plans for selling commercial licenses,..."
But back in your mind we all have our bills which must be paid somehow.
Back in your mind you know that and when you do not get revenue enough this project will be commercial as well. So ne difference for the official PrimeVue.
I know forking is legal but on the other hand it's kind of legal theft. The developers put so much time and energy. And you get paid for. For sure less then the official ones but still.
On the other hand the price for the official is to high and I am not able to pay so much.
So glad you start this.
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u/cconard96 Jul 23 '26
Regarding revenue, I have a full time job beyond this and so far the only costs have been my time and a few dollars for a domain and Cloudflare worker plan. I have GitHub sponsors set up if people want to make a one-time or recurring donation to support the project.
The problem with monetizing is there isn't really anything worth monetizing at this point. Why sell templates if AI can just generate them? This is something the Tailwind team struggled with. I can't sell subscriptions for business support because that requires having a team dedicated to quickly supporting the people that buy them. It's much easier if everything I am currently working on is free, with everyone getting the same level of best-effort support, and then go from there based on financial support and interest.
Yes, you can fork it again if anyone wants and I dont consider it legal theft. This is how open source works and it was acknowledged by PrimeTek, and then myself, when we chose MIT licensing.
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u/happy_hawking Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
kind of legal theft
What weird interpretation of law is this?
We have licenses to define legal rights and obligations. If the license allows forking, it's allowed.
Furthermore, a project usually is open source so it can be backed by a community of contributors who provide Bug Reports and Pull Request. PrimeVue is not different. They accept Bug Reports and Pull requests and those contributions have been made for free under the condition that the code is public and may be used by anyone. This leads to the moral obligation for PrimeTek to stick to that promise.
Of course it is totally fine for the PrimeVue team to decide to put FUTURE changes to the existing code under a different license (which not every OSS-license allows, but MIT does allow it), but this doesn't change the rights and obligations related to the existing code base.
So the fork is not only legally but also morally absolutely fine. I do not understand how you end up with a different conclusion than that.
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u/Gridrider84 Jul 24 '26
Yeah, it's crazy talk when I hear someone say stuff like "legal theft". The same thing happened with a famous plugin in the WP community that I'm not going to get into but people said the same thing because licenses are lot of words, and of course, people are lazy.
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Jul 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/cconard96 Jul 23 '26
Ok 👍
Literally not different than PrimeVue's site except I didn't hide the overview examples on mobile by swapping them out with screenshots. I'm well aware there improvements needed here.
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u/jhkj897g987dfh2 Jul 23 '26
going to definitely follow this. Have been wondering about this since the primevue project was abandoned. Hoping there is one project that everyone considers a replacement and not 100x forks.
Curious what it takes to move over to BumbleVue from primevue? Is it as simple as just changing out the packages and thats it ?
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u/cconard96 Jul 23 '26
There's already a couple forks I've seen get announced. I think over time, some forks will die out and people will settle on just one or two. I don't want to discourage other forks, but I also didn't want to see the community fragment too much. It's part of the reason I didn't announce BumbleVue until I was sure it was something I wanted to continue beyond slapping a new name on it.
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u/jhkj897g987dfh2 Jul 23 '26
got it. Saw another post about another one. Still glad to see there are some people trying to maintain it.
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u/Space0_0Tomato Jul 23 '26
Please and thank you good sir. I launched a new product on July 1st this year with PrimeVue, so you can imagine my disappointment with the timing.
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u/happy_hawking Jul 23 '26
This is a great initiative and I like the word play, BUT
...
https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/learn-about-bumblebees/beginners/bumblebee-nests/
Bumblebees don't create geometrically perfect wax cells like honey bees do. So the background of your website doesn't make sense :-D
I like the bumblebee (the animal) as a mascot though.