Shadcn UI Rebuilds Every Component on Base UI, Drops Radix as Default

The most popular React component system quietly rewrote its entire library for the next generation of headless UI primitives.

The shadcn/ui project shipped its most consequential architectural change since launch: Base UI is now the default component engine, replacing Radix after more than three years.

When shadcn/ui launched in January 2023, Radix was the undisputed king of unstyled, accessible React primitives. Nothing else came close. But the team that built Radix moved on to build Base UI — a ground-up reimagining of headless components informed by everything they learned the first time around.

Rather than forcing a migration, shadcn took the characteristically pragmatic route. The team rebuilt every single component for Base UI while preserving the same abstraction layer. New projects default to Base UI. Existing Radix projects keep working. Developers choose.

Base UI now sits at version 1.6.0 with over 6 million weekly downloads. The shadcn team has been running it in production on every new project for months before making it the default.

The move signals a broader maturation in the React ecosystem. Headless component libraries are converging on a second generation of primitives that are faster, smaller, and more composable than their predecessors. Shadcn betting the default on Base UI is as close to a coronation as this space gets.

Sources: shadcn/ui Changelog