Back in February, I wrote about why I built Blazor Blueprint: I wanted the modern, clean look of shadcn/ui in Blazor, and nothing out there gave me that. You can read that post here.
That post covered the what. This one covers what has happened since, and a bit of the backstory I didn't share at the time.
I nearly gave up on Blazor
In December 2025, my company decided to build its own commercial product, and I had to choose the technology. I wanted the whole stack in one technology, so I took a serious look at Blazor.
I liked it straight away. Building with C# end to end felt right. Making it look good didn't. I tried the existing Blazor UI libraries and just didn't like their style, and I seriously considered going back to a JavaScript frontend.
Instead, I started building my own components.
Building it alongside a real product
Looking back, the best decision was building the components while building a real product. Every component went straight into real use, so I got instant feedback on what worked and what didn't. After a while, I wondered whether other Blazor developers felt the same way I did, so I released it as open source.
The good moments
The first GitHub star. Well, the second one. The first was from me.
Then came the Reddit post. I got a lot of really positive comments and feedback, and within a week the project had passed 160 stars. For a first open source project, that meant a lot.
The part I wasn't ready for
Soon after the release, someone forked the repo and started building on my work in parallel.
I wouldn't call it stress or anxiety, but it was an uncomfortable feeling, and it stayed with me for a while. It was my first time releasing open source code, and watching someone take what I'd made and head off in their own direction felt strange.
Nine months after I started building it, and having watched Blazor Blueprint grow into what it is today, I see that moment as part of the learning curve that comes with being in the open source community.
Where it's used now
Blazor Blueprint now runs in my company's new commercial product, in several client projects and in internal tools. Here are a couple of examples I can share:
- Beaacon, an anonymous analytics tool for monitoring websites without needing Google Analytics or PostHog.
- Merlin, a tool for managing ISO 27001 requirements.
Both are built in Blazor. Having a large library of ready-made, good-looking components to reach into makes building fast and, honestly, fun. That's all I wanted when I started.
Where it is today
The project has gone from 160 stars in its first week to over 600. Version 4 added a lot of new components and brought it much closer to the major Blazor libraries in coverage. Version 4.1 adds:
- A fully functional Scheduler
- A Pivot Data Grid
- Rose, Sankey and Map charts
- A Signature Pad
- Barcode and QR Code components
- Speed and stability improvements
A Spreadsheet component is coming soon.
If you've been where I was
If you've looked at Blazor and thought, "I like this, but I can't make it look the way I want," that's exactly why this exists. Give it a try, and let me know what works and what doesn't. Feedback from real projects has shaped it from day one.
Docs: blazorblueprintui.com
GitHub: github.com/blazorblueprintui/ui
