themes.dev is back: what happened since the last update

It’s been a while. My last post on this blog was about Tailwind CSS 3.0, in November 2021. That’s almost five years ago! After that it got pretty quiet here. The site stayed online and you could still buy things, but I didn’t add anything new. In this post I tell you what happened in the meantime, why I decided to continue with themes.dev and what changed on the site.

Table of contents

• What happened in the meantime
• Why I continue
• Everything is an experiment
• A new website
• Almost everything is free
• Flightdeck: the AirControl update I promised
• Our own checkout
• Did you buy something before?
• Free Tailwind CSS tools
• What’s next

What happened in the meantime#

On themes.dev not much happened the last few years. In my own life a lot did. We now have three kids, and we moved three times. With a young family and client work, themes.dev ended up at the bottom of my to-do list.

In the web world a lot changed too. AI now writes a big part of the code for many developers. That includes the layouts and components people used to buy a template for.

You can also see that at Tailwind Labs, the company behind Tailwind CSS. Their revenue dropped by almost 80%, while more people than ever use Tailwind. In September 2026 Tailwind Labs was acquired by Shopify. Luckily Tailwind CSS stays open source. But for me it was a clear sign that selling templates is not what it was in 2021.

Why I continue#

So I thought for a long time about what to do with themes.dev. Do I continue? And if so, how? Or do I stop?

In the end I decided to give it a try. AI is good at building a screen that works. But a screen that also looks good and feels right is still hard for AI. For that you need taste. I’ve been building websites for 15 years, and that experience is something I can still add. Together with AI I can now build more templates, and better ones, than I ever could on my own. I think that can still be valuable for a lot of developers.

I hope developers think so too. If not, it was a nice experiment. I give it one year. If themes.dev doesn’t pay for itself by then, next to my other work, I will close it.

Everything is an experiment#

To be honest, I also ask myself if Tailwind CSS still adds value in 2026. For now I think it does. But it’s possible that I will also offer plain CSS soon.

I’m also still figuring out if I need to offer every template in other frameworks too. Or if it’s just fine to let your AI convert it for you. I don’t know yet.

I’m also experimenting with an MCP server, to see if that fits better in modern workflows. Instead of downloading a zip file, your AI agent gets the right block directly from themes.dev.

So everything is an experiment. I really don’t know where this is going, and a lot feels uncertain right now. But I also get excited about this new way of working. And I hope it can still be valuable for a lot of people.

A new website#

The old site ran on Hugo and it showed its age. The newsletter form still posted to Revue, a service that doesn’t exist anymore. Prices didn’t match between pages. And a product from 2021 still had a “New” badge. 🙈

So I rebuilt themes.dev from scratch with Astro. The site is faster and simpler, and it shows screenshots of the real products instead of live previews. Old preview links redirect to the right product page. All the posts on this blog moved along, including a few images that got lost on the way.

themes.dev will also be about more than Tailwind CSS. The plan is to make themes for other tools too, like shadcn/ui and React, and modern headless CMSs like Sanity. On the homepage you see them as “coming soon”. They stay like that until there is something to show.

Almost everything is free#

Every template and kit in the library is now free, except the two admin themes. WindyBlocks, Runway, the landing page pack, the SaaS dashboard and landing page, the product update template and the footer pack. Just download them and use them.

Asking money for templates I didn’t update for years didn’t feel right. The admin themes are where I put my time, so that is what you pay for.

Flightdeck: the AirControl update I promised#

In 2022 I promised AirControl customers a big free update, with teams, users, a social feed, documentation, e-commerce and error pages, and dark mode. That update never came. That bothered me for a long time.

Now it’s here. But it got so much bigger than an update that it became its own product: Flightdeck. It’s an admin and SaaS design system for Tailwind CSS v4. It has 204 screens, built from 62 blocks and 44 components, and 6 app shells. Everything works in light and dark mode. Every block and screen also has a loading, empty and error state. Most admin templates skip those, but every real app needs them.

Flightdeck is also made to work with AI coding agents. Every item has a description of what it is and how to use it, and the kit comes with a local registry. That way your agent can find the right block, instead of guessing.

All the sections I promised in 2022 are in it. Plus an AI assistant, a command palette, a helpdesk, usage billing, an audit log, and API and webhook settings. A MIGRATING.md file shows for every AirControl page where you find it in Flightdeck.

Flightdeck starts at €79 for one developer. You pay once and get all updates. AirControl is still available as the simpler and cheaper option, from €29.

Our own checkout#

Until now you bought everything through Lemon Squeezy. That worked fine, but all you got was a license key in an email. There was no place to download a new version, and you couldn’t add your team.

On top of that, Lemon Squeezy was bought by Stripe in 2024. The team now works on Stripe’s own version of it, Stripe Managed Payments. So I expect Lemon Squeezy to disappear sooner or later. That made it a good moment to move.

That’s why themes.dev now has its own checkout and accounts. You sign in with your email address. In your account you find your licenses, downloads and invoices. With a team license you can invite your colleagues, and every colleague gets their own seat. Prices are in euros, VAT is calculated at checkout (EU businesses with a valid VAT number pay no Dutch VAT), and you get a proper invoice for every order. When there is a new version, you get one email about it. Don’t want that? You can turn it off in your account.

Did you buy something before?#

Then your purchases moved along. Sign in to your account with the email address you bought with, and you will find them there.

• Bought AirControl? Then you get Flightdeck for free, with the same license size. A single license became Solo, a team license became Company. AirControl also stays in your account.
• Bought another template? Then you get AirControl for free. A small thank you for supporting themes.dev in the early days.
• Bought with another email address? In your account you can claim those purchases.

Is something missing or not right? Send me a message and I’ll fix it.

Free Tailwind CSS tools#

I also built a few small tools that I needed myself:

• Tailwind CSS colors: the complete v4 color palette in OKLCH and hex, and the v3 and v2 palettes in tabs.
• Hex to Tailwind: paste a hex color and find the closest Tailwind color.
• Dashboard color palette: chart colors for light and dark mode that stay readable next to each other.
• Tailwind config to v4: convert your tailwind.config.js to the new @theme setup in CSS of Tailwind CSS v4.

They all run in your browser, they’re free and you don’t need an account.

What’s next#

First I want to make sure that everyone who bought something over the years finds their account. After that I will release Flightdeck updates on a regular basis, and then I will start on the first themes for other platforms than Tailwind CSS.

I made enough promises in the past, so this time I’ll keep it at that. In a year I’ll write a new post about how the experiment went. Good or bad.

Do you have ideas or feedback? Or do you think I should do things differently? Send me a message, I really like to hear it.

That’s it. Thanks for reading, and see you in a year! 😉