Trix by basecamp
A rich text editor for everyday writing
About Trix
From the project's README at github.com/basecamp/trix. Lightly cleaned for readability; for the full source see the upstream repo.
Compose beautifully formatted text in your web application. Trix is a WYSIWYG editor for writing messages, comments, articles, and lists, the simple documents most web apps are made of. It features a sophisticated document model, support for embedded attachments, and outputs terse and consistent HTML.
Trix is an open-source project from 37signals, the creators of Ruby on Rails. Millions of people trust their text to us, and we built Trix to give them the best possible editing experience. See Trix in action in Basecamp. Different By Design
When Trix was designed in 2014, most WYSIWYG editors were wrappers around HTML’s and APIs, designed by Microsoft to support live editing of web pages in Internet Explorer 5.5, and eventually reverse-engineered and copied by other browsers.
Because these APIs were not fully specified or documented, and because WYSIWYG HTML editors are enormous in scope, each browser’s implementation has its own set of bugs and quirks, and JavaScript developers are left to resolve the inconsistencies.
Health score breakdown
6-dimension composite. See methodology for formula and weights.
Adoption signals
Real-world usage data, pulled from each registry. The bigger the numbers, the more battle-tested the project.
| Signal | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | 20k | github.com/basecamp/trix |
| GitHub forks | 1.1k | github.com/basecamp/trix |
| NPM downloads (last month) | 1.9M | trix |
Release & maintenance
Is this project actively maintained, or about to die? Check the recency of last commit and last release.
| Project age | 12.9 years | since Aug 2013 |
| Last commit | 2 months ago | Apr 25, 2026 |
| Releases shipped | 69 | last: 3 months ago |
Self-hosting cost across providers
Detected requirements: 4GB RAM, 40GB disk minimum. Cheapest plan per provider that meets the requirement.
| Provider | Plan | Specs | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| hetzner | CAX11 | 2c · 4GB · 40GB | $4.13 USD | Deploy → |
| vultr | VC2 | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5 USD | Deploy → |
| linode | Nanode 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5.12 USD | Deploy → |
| digitalocean | Basic Regular 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $6 USD | Deploy → |
Security advisories
GHSA-53p3-c7vp-4mcc. What people say on Hacker News
- Show HN: I built an edge ML system to detect and classify trick-or-treaters
- VeilGate- Deception Reverse Proxy
- Show HN: Native-feeling charts for Obsidian Bases, built with Deno
- GhostTree: Unveiling Path Manipulation Techniques to Bypass Windows Security
- Plex's 200% Lifetime Pass price hike tries forcing users to another subscription
Ready to self-host Trix?
Spin up a hetzner CAX11 (4GB RAM, 40GB disk) for $4.13/mo and follow the project's official install docs.
Data last refreshed Jun 21, 2026.
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