Kirki Plugin Up for Sale, Development Discontinued – WP Tavern
David Vongries, developer of the Kirki Customizer Framework plugin, announced he’s sunsetting the product and can discontinue growth and assist. Vongries purchased the plugin in 2020 from its authentic creator, Ari Stathopoulos, and grew its consumer base from 400K to 600K energetic installs. He launched Kirki PRO with further extensions in March 2022.
“Once I first acquired Kirki in early 2020, I had massive plans for it,” Vongries mentioned. “Though we had been capable of execute on step one of many 2-step plan we had for the plugin, as time went on, I misplaced ardour for the mission primarily as a result of path WordPress core has taken with Gutenberg.
“It’s clear to me now that I used to be too bold in taking over the mission.”
Kirki’s customizer framework enabled theme authors so as to add customized controls and superior options to the customizer, together with the flexibility to fashion it, and add a customized header. Though block theme adoption has been a sluggish course of, the dying knell for the Customizer rang years in the past.
In 2020, Vongries mentioned that exploring how Kirki may probably prolong Gutenberg was considered one of his objectives. Stathopoulos had additionally mentioned the potential of transferring away from the customizer to work with full-site modifying and world kinds, serving to themes that use Kirki transition to world kinds. These objectives didn’t materialize however the potential for them remains to be there.
Vongries is now on the lookout for somebody to accumulate the plugin however is dedicated to offering restricted assist to customers within the meantime, together with fixing important bugs and compatibility points that occur as the results of WordPress core updates.
“The present energetic set up depend within the WordPress repository is 600,000, which presents a fantastic alternative to revamp the plugin and get it in entrance of precise customers,” he mentioned. “I consider that there’s nonetheless nice potential in Kirki, and I’m on the lookout for somebody who shares that imaginative and prescient to take it ahead.”
Vongries has put a price ticket of $30K on the plugin, which incorporates all of the belongings – the web site, GitHub, and PRO extensions. No additional energetic growth or updates are deliberate except Kirki will get acquired by somebody who desires to hold it ahead.
