Shadcn/UI Defaults to Base UI Over Radix — A New Chapter in React UI Components
As of July 2026, shadcn/ui defaults to Base UI instead of Radix. The same team, thousands of lessons learned, 6M+ weekly downloads. Radix isn't going anywhere — full support continues.
Introduction: A Historic Shift in shadcn/ui
July 2026 marks a pivotal moment for the React UI ecosystem. shadcn/ui, one of the most popular React component collections, has officially announced that Base UI replaces Radix UI as the default component library.
This decision is more than just a technical swap — it's the end of one era and the beginning of another. Since its launch in January 2023, shadcn/ui was built on top of Radix UI's headless primitives. Now, it defaults to Base UI — a library crafted by the very same team that built Radix, but armed with years of hard-earned wisdom.
Base UI: Same Team, New Vision
Base UI is being built by the same team behind Radix UI. At version v1.6.0 with over 6 million weekly downloads, Base UI has already proven its maturity and reliability. The library addresses fundamental issues that plagued Radix users for years — including more flexible APIs, improved accessibility, better SSR support, and a smaller bundle footprint.
Why Base UI? A 2-to-1 Developer Preference
The shadcn/ui team's decision was data-driven. Community feedback revealed that new projects show a 2-to-1 preference for Base UI over Radix. Starting now, running npx shadcn init will default to Base UI.
Radix's Fate: Supported, Not Deprecated
Radix UI is not going anywhere. The shadcn/ui team has clearly stated that Radix remains fully supported. All updates, features, and bug fixes will ship simultaneously for both libraries. There is no migration requirement.
Migration: Incremental, Painless, and Tool-Assisted
shadcn/ui has introduced a dedicated migration skill. Run pnpm dlx skills add shadcn/ui then migrate accordion to base-ui. The migration is progressive — one component at a time, both libraries coexist, clean git history.
Other Announcements: Rhea, GitHub Registries, Chat Components, @shadcn/react
Rhea offers a compact Luma theme. GitHub Registries simplify component publishing. Chat components target AI interfaces. shadcn eject provides full customization control. @shadcn/react offers unstyled headless React components.
Conclusion
shadcn/ui's move to Base UI is one of the most significant React ecosystem events of 2026. At SiTech Agency, we build our Next.js projects on shadcn/ui and are already evaluating the Base UI migration.