The Next Generation of Faust.js Has Arrived

Headless WordPress is changing the game when it comes to building faster, safer sites on the world’s most trusted CMS, and Faust.js is one of the most important pieces of technology for headless development. 

The JavaScript framework is designed to make building the frontends of headless sites easier, and thousands of developers have already harnessed the power of Faust.js in their headless builds.

Faust.js is an open source project that is free for the entire WordPress community to use. As part of our commitment to maintaining and improving Faust, the team behind it has spent the past year gathering important feedback from Faust.js users. That feedback led our team to conduct a complete rewrite of the framework, which has resulted in a new version of Faust.js that’s designed specifically to improve scalability and flexibility for all headless WordPress sites.

While the old version of Faust.js will continue to operate as intended for the sites that rely on it, any new sites built using Atlas Blueprints on WP Engine’s platform will automatically use the new version. 

Read on to find out more about Faust.js, as well as what you can expect from the new version.

A Quick History of Faust.js

Originally launched last year, Faust.js was designed on top of Next.js and React. The framework consists of a WordPress plugin and a set of npm packages that work together to make building frontend applications easier. 

Faust.js was built to solve one of the most common challenges that arises when building headless sites: the ability to preview posts and pages without sacrificing user experience. In the months since its release, Faust.js has been delivering better experiences for developers while maintaining ease of publishing for less technical site users.

What’s New for Faust.js?

In short, everything. WP Engine developers have rebuilt the entire framework from the ground up, improving multiple aspects of Faust.js along the way. For this reason, users cannot swap out the old version of Faust.js for the new version on already-existing sites. 

This is an entirely new and separate package, and developers will need to familiarize themselves with the new framework as they  continue building headless sites with Atlas Blueprints.

Based on the feedback we received from developers using the  previous version of Faust.js, we’ve made the following improvements:

• Implemented a new data layer that improves the process of working with queries
• Removed barriers for scaling with an API-first design, allowing developers to reuse their work for multiple projects
• Created a new WordPress Template Hierarchy for headless: this first-of-its-kind feature allows developers to create templates for any piece of WordPress data, which can then be used across other headless builds

That being said, this is not an end of life for the old Faust.js. Customers already leveraging the old version will not see an interruption on those sites, and there is no end of life scheduled for the old version of the framework at this time. Documentation related to the previous version of Faust has been moved to https://legacy.faustjs.org. 

Want a more detailed look at the new improvements to Faust.js? Check out this post on the Faust.js blog.

What’s Next for Faust.js?

One of our core values at WP Engine is Committed to Give Back, meaning we’re dedicated to giving back to the communities we live and work in, as well as the larger WordPress community. 

With that top of mind, we’ll continue gathering feedback from our customers and users of our open source projects, and improving the tools and technology they love—including Faust.js—to make WordPress the CMS of choice for both headless and traditional websites.

If you have any questions or suggestions that would improve Faust.js, join the Discord channel at faustjs or, for customers using our platform, reach out to WP Engine’s customer support team.

This new update also means that changes are on the horizon for Atlas Blueprints. Because the old Blueprints were built with the old version of Faust.js, they will no longer be available. Instead, users will be able to access a single Blueprint that demos features for developers who are interested in getting started on Atlas and using the framework—use of Faust.js is optional for all WP Engine customers.  Additionally, WP Engine is working on a new project scaffold intended to help experienced developers get started with new projects as quickly as possible. 

As the community of developers using Atlas Blueprints continues to grow, our teams will release changes that will make onboarding easier for new users and continue to improve our customers’ experiences with building headless sites.

Faust.js Isn’t the Only Headless Innovation From WP Engine 

In addition to the incredible work with Faust.js, the product and engineering teams have also been delivering new innovations on the Atlas platform. From development previews to webhooks to rollback functionality, the team has been making it easier (and faster) to build headless WordPress projects. 

We know there are many more exciting things to come as we look toward the future of headless technology and the Faust.js framework, so be on the lookout for more features, innovations, and technology from Atlas and the WP Engine team.

Try the New and Improved Faust.js Framework

Want to try out the new version of Faust.js for yourself? Download here, or better yet, sign up for a free Atlas Sandbox account and experience an intuitive UI and powerful decoupled architecture in action on WP Engine!

Want to find out more about headless WordPress? Visit WP Engine for a closer look at Atlas, or speak to a representative today!