Aurelia turned 11 this year. That is older than some JavaScript frameworks that have come and gone entirely. It is older than many of the developers now discovering it for the first time. And somehow, against all odds in an ecosystem that treats frameworks like seasonal fashion, we are still here.
We just shipped the release candidate for Aurelia 2 . The framework is stable, the documentation is comprehensive, and production applications are running on it today. This is not a project on life support. This is a project that has been quietly, consistently delivering for over a decade.
True Open Source
Aurelia has always been genuinely open source. No corporate parent company. No venture capital deciding our roadmap. No sudden licensing changes because a board needs to see returns. Just a community of developers who believe in building software a certain way: respecting web standards, staying out of your way, and trusting you to know what you are doing.
That independence is not an accident. It is a choice we make every day, and it is why Aurelia will still be here in another 11 years.
Thinking Ahead
Here is the thing about sustainability: you do not wait until you need it to start planning for it.
Aurelia is not going anywhere. The framework exists because people contribute their time, expertise, and energy. It has survived team changes, a global pandemic, and the usual chaos of open source maintenance. We have sponsors who believe in what we are building, and we are grateful for every one of them.
But we are also thinking about what comes next.
A Labour of Love
Let’s be honest about how we got here. Aurelia 2 exists because a small team of people poured years of their lives into it. Many of us funded our own efforts to reach the release candidate. Countless nights and weekends went into building, debugging, and refining. This has always been a labour of love, and that is not changing.
But love does not scale. The roadmap for 2026 includes significant work: AOT compilation, SSR and SSG support, improved tooling, expanded bundler compatibility, and features the community has been asking for. All of this is already in progress. We are not waiting for funding to start.
What funding does is accelerate. It lets us dedicate more hours to the bigger ticket items instead of squeezing them into evenings after day jobs. It means faster iteration on the VS Code extension. It means SSR lands sooner rather than later. It means we can say yes to more of the ideas that make Aurelia better.
Specifically, we would like to reach a point where we can fund dedicated development time on the framework. Not full-time salaries (we are realistic), but consistent paid hours to tackle both the ambitious features and the less glamorous work that keeps a framework healthy: infrastructure improvements, performance profiling, documentation gaps.
How You Can Help
If you or your company uses Aurelia, consider becoming a sponsor through our OpenCollective .
This is not a plea. Aurelia will continue to exist regardless. But sponsorship accelerates the work. It lets us say yes to improvements that would otherwise wait. It is an investment in the stability and longevity of a framework you already rely on.
There are tiers for individuals and organizations, and every contribution is visible and accounted for. OpenCollective handles the transparency so you can see exactly where the money goes.
What Sponsors Get
Beyond the satisfaction of supporting open source software you depend on:
- Your logo on our website and GitHub
- Recognition in release announcements
- The knowledge that you are helping maintain a framework used by developers and organizations around the world
For larger sponsors, there is more. Sponsorship is not buying a share of Aurelia. This is not about ownership. But it does mean the core team can dedicate hours to helping you directly: migrations from Aurelia 1, implementation guidance, debugging tricky issues, and understanding your needs so we can shape future Aurelia features around real-world use cases.
We are a small team, so these dedicated hours are reserved for higher tiers. But if your company relies on Aurelia or simply loves what we are building, sponsorship provides the security of knowing that when you need help, you can get it quickly and from the people who built the framework.
We already offer what we think is world-class community support through our Discord and Discourse . Sponsorship takes that a step further with direct access and prioritized attention.
If your company has benefited from Aurelia over the years, sponsorship is a way to give back while ensuring the framework remains healthy for your own applications.
The Long Game
We are not building Aurelia for the next quarter. We are building it for the next decade. The decisions we make today, about architecture, about community, about sustainability, are all in service of that goal.
Eleven years in, we are more confident than ever that this approach works. Join us.