by Tanner Linsley on Nov 24, 2025.
Two years ago I went all in on TanStack. No consulting, no safety nets, just a commitment to build open source at a professional, sustainable level. What started as a handful of libraries I built at Nozzle has grown into a real ecosystem powering millions of developers and many of the largest companies in the world.
I can share plenty of numbers in this post, but this is really about what it feels like to run a modern open source organization: the highs, the lows, the cost, the growth, and the people who have made it possible.
Building a full stack framework is hard. I knew that from watching other teams do it. Most of them had something I didn't: capital. Next, Gatsby, Redwood, Remix... they all had funding, companies, or acquisition paths that helped them move fast.
I didn't. TanStack had a ground swell behind it, but financially it was just me and whatever I had saved to survive another startup winter. I knew Start would take a level of focus and sacrifice that most projects never require. It was an ecosystem-level rethink of how modern frontend applications should be built, starting with React but designed from day one to support Solid and other runtimes through adapters.
I could get far alone. I couldn’t finish it alone.
Money buys time, and time has to be protected. Before I started this journey, I knew my personal, financial, and family life needed to be solid. When you’re trying to build something this big, your foundation matters more than your code.
My family has kept me grounded. They are the thing I run back to every afternoon and weekend. They’ve supported the late nights and the intense sprints, and in return I try to be fully present when I’m not at my desk. Without my wife, kids, and extended family, I would have burned out months in.
And yes, stepping away is hard. When you’re deep in flow, taking a vacation feels like losing momentum. But I love being with my family too much to trade that away. Even if I secretly worry I’ll forget how to code after a week on the beach.
The other key ingredient was people. If I was going to take breaks and keep my sanity, I needed a team that could carry the torch with pride and consistency. Great software is always built by great people.
I wanted contributors who could give their best work without feeling exploited or drained. That meant finding enough funding to pay them fairly and keep the lights on. Some of our contributors would tell you that money isn’t why they’re here, and they’re right. Their loyalty and pride in what we’re building is unshakeable. Still, I sleep better knowing they’re compensated for the value they bring.
At the time of writing, TanStack has 16 partners funding a model that actually feels sustainable. Their support covers a reasonable salary for me, a growing rainy-day fund for the organization, monthly sponsorships for around 12 core contributors, and short-term contracts for another 3 to 5 people.
Two years ago I had no idea if this approach to open source would work. So far it has. The real test will come in 2026, but we’ll get to that.
Here’s where the work shows.
TanStack now includes 13 active projects maintained by 36 core contributors and supported by a community of 6,300+ on Discord. Our libraries have been downloaded over 4 billion times, have 112,660 GitHub stars, 2,790 contributors, and more than 1.3 million dependent repositories.
Even the website has become a real destination. In the last year, TanStack.com saw 3 million users, 40 million page views, and an average session duration of 15 minutes.
More importantly, real companies are building real things on TanStack Start. Behind those numbers are teams from some of the largest and most well-known companies in the world, spanning tech, finance, e-commerce, entertainment, hardware, and healthcare. Seeing that level of adoption from both startups and global enterprises has been one of the most rewarding parts of this journey.
Today, over 9,000 companies are in our ongoing usage funnel, with another 33,000 in evaluation or experimentation.
Every active TanStack library continues to grow month over month. That kind of growth isn’t hype. It’s teams building long-term bets.
These numbers don’t define us, but they prove that principled open source can scale without compromising what makes it good.
Going full time on open source felt risky. I had conviction, not guarantees. But the shift to sustainability changed everything. I could finally think long term. Not “next sprint” long term. Next decade long term.
The experience has also taught me a lot about leadership. I’ve had to say no more often, slow things down at times, and balance my drive to create with the responsibility to maintain. Every decision has both a technical and a human cost.
Success used to mean numbers. Now it means letting the people around me thrive too.
Looking back, going full time wasn’t a bet on myself. It was a bet on us. A bet that an independent, principled community could build professional-grade software and still remain free, open, and sustainable.
TanStack has always been built on kindness. Inclusive, patient, and fiercely protective of quality. I’ve even had contributors turn down money purely out of principle, which still blows my mind. I usually convince them to take it anyway, but it says a lot about the kind of people involved.
I still wrestle with polish and focus. That last ten percent takes me forever. I lean on my team for that. And I’m forgetful enough that I’m probably one missed calendar reminder away from hiring a personal assistant.
If TanStack vanished tomorrow, I’d want people to remember the care we put into it. Not just in the code, but in how we treated each other.
The next two years are about scale.
TanStack Start is closing in on 1.0. We're finalizing React Server Component support in a way that feels uniquely TanStack: pragmatic, cache-aware, and treating RSCs as another stream of server-side state rather than a whole new worldview.
On the Router side, some long-planned features may finally get their moment in 2026.
And yes, we’ve already started work on a massive new library that will take most of next year to get off the ground. It’s one of the biggest things we’ve ever attempted. I can’t share details yet, but it will open a new chapter for the entire ecosystem.
If the last two years were roots, the next two will be growth.
None of this happens alone.
To the contributors: thank you. You’ve turned ideas into software people can rely on.
To our sponsors and partners: thank you for believing that open source can be sustainable, not just inspirational.
And to the community: thank you for building your products, companies, and careers on our work. We don’t take that for granted for a second.
These past two years have been the most demanding and fulfilling of my career. We’ve shown that open source can be principled, independent, and sustainable. And we’re still just getting started.
If TanStack has helped you or your team, here's how to help us keep going:
Every bit of support helps more than you realize.
