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I took back Video.js after 16 years and we rewrote it to be 88% smaller

I took back Video.js after 16 years and we rewrote it to be 88% smaller

by Heff·Mar 24, 2026·648 points·137 comments
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AI Analysis

●●●●GemWizardryBig Brain

Rival open-source video projects united to shrink the bundle size by 88 percent.

Strengths
  • •Unprecedented collaboration between Video.js, Plyr, Vidstack, and Media Chrome maintainers for shared core.
  • •88% bundle size reduction significantly improves page load performance for video-heavy sites.
Weaknesses
  • •Beta status means potential breaking changes for existing Video.js v8 implementations.
  • •Migration documentation might lag behind the initial release hype and adoption curve.
Category
Open Source
Target Audience

Frontend developers and video platform engineers

Similar To

Plyr · Vidstack · Media Chrome

Post Description

What do you do when private equity buys your old company and fires the maintainers of the popular open source project you started over a decade ago? You reboot it, and bring along some new friends to do it.

Video.js is used by billions of people every month, on sites like Amazon.com, Linkedin, and Dropbox, and yet it wasn’t in great shape. A skeleton crew of maintainers were doing their best with a dated architecture, but it needed more. So Sam from Plyr, Rahim from Vidstack, and Wes and Christain from Media Chrome jumped in to help me rebuild it better, faster, and smaller.

It’s in beta now. Please give it a try and tell us what breaks.

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