Any ETA for opening the store to third-party sales?

Elements
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I know this topic has been brought up before, but the current lack of information isn’t very helpful for us independent developers. So, to get a better understanding of the store’s roadmap regarding third-party components, could you give us a realistic timeline of when we might be able to start selling?

If this information is currently confidential, a private message with any details would be greatly appreciated. As many of us are small business owners, being able to plan our work ahead of time is crucial for us—just as I imagine it is for your team.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

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I am curious about this as well, although I am not a developer, but a user.

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Count me as interested :slight_smile: lol :joy:

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Yes, users are as interested in this information as much as developers, and that should be a warning to Realmac.

Elements is great, and reasonably complete at this point (as a baseline). But almost all of us trying to use it for something find that there are “holes” we would like filled, and given the track record so far, it would be years before Realmac fills them. There’s a limit to what Realmac’s resources can produce, and more importantly, they want to produce things that are stronger in revenue gathering than “a new Component.”

What we as users need at this point are smaller, typically one-person businesses that can and will prioritize small additions to Elements. These are the businesses that propelled Rapidweaver, via an almost constant release of small new Stacks that solved one problem.

Yes, I know I can vibe code a Component if I have to, but frankly US$10-20 to solve a problem is cheaper than doing it via AI, as my time is my most valuable commodity. As it is, “design” is taking me longer than I want it to. “Populating” and “publishing” is what makes me money.

So, to @dan: we don’t need firm dates. What we all need is a better understanding of the likely timing. Is getting developers into the Store targeted to happen in weeks, this quarter, this summer, this fall, this year, or what? Each of those answers has me doing something different TODAY. Each of those answers implies a different ramp for Elements sales.

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+1

All of us developers have already worked on both projects and components. We have several pending projects, and now we’re not even visible anymore (only in the online marketplace).

If the problem is technical (as already mentioned), at least offer temporary alternatives to support the work. That seems like a reasonable request.

If RMS has changed plans, just say so and we’ll dedicate our time to developing on other platforms.

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I completely understand all of you… my credit card and I are also waiting for the marketplace to finally go online.

However, I suspect we’ll still need a bit more patience. I imagine the marketplace is a huge challenge for the team, making sure everything works the way both we users and you third-party developers would like it to.

The fact that there have been fewer updates and almost no videos since the beginning of the year, I actually see as a good sign. My guess is that the team is working intensively on the marketplace and other related things.

And if you take a look at today’s marketplace update, you’ll notice that an “new” old template has made its way back into the store. That probably didn’t happen without a reason. I assume this might simply be a test by the team to see if the whole process works properly.

So let’s just look forward to Easter.

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I know this is hugely frustrating for third-party developers, and I’m sorry it’s taking longer than any of us would like. We’re a small team, but we’re working hard to move things forward as quickly as we can.

If we could snap our fingers and make it all happen instantly, we absolutely would.

It’s worth remembering that Elements is a new platform. It’s not RapidWeaver Classic and Stacks, and the landscape today is very different and evolving quickly. We’re not trying to recreate how things worked in the past. We’re building something designed to succeed in the world as it is now.

I know it can sometimes look effortless from the outside when new features and updates keep arriving, but the reality is it’s a huge amount of work. We’re constantly prioritising what we believe will have the biggest impact for the app and for users. This can change on a weekly basis.

Over the past few months we’ve focused heavily on polishing the app, fixing bugs, and filling in important foundational features like Tables, Markdown, Lists, and many other things that you guys have been asking for.

Alongside that, we’ve also been making steady progress on the store itself. Recently we launched a web-based version of the Elements Addons store that you can browse online. Getting that live required quite a bit of groundwork :nerd_face:

CleanShot 2026-03-12 at 4 .11.32@2x
CleanShot 2026-03-12 at 4 .11.32@2x1920×1581 1.12 MB

We added an API to the built-in store to support public listings, then built the entire store website in Elements itself :star_struck: To make that possible we created several custom components to talk to the Store API and the result is the new online store.

Building software like Elements, and the ecosystem around it, takes a significant amount of time to do properly. But we are continuing to make steady progress across all areas of the platform.

While the store isn’t yet open for third-party sales, we are exploring ways to begin opening things up this year so the community has a way to easily share and discover components. Exactly how that evolves is still being worked through, but enabling a broader ecosystem around Elements is very much part of where things are heading.

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Hey @Dan, thanks for your reply and congratulations on the new store.
I want to be clear that I’m not complaining about you not opening the store up to third-party developers yet; I’d just like some idea of ​​when you think you’ll open it.
So, can you be a little more specific about your statement “exploring ways to start opening things up this year” because knowing you’ll open it in roughly two months is a very different story than knowing you’ll open it in roughly nine months?
If we had an idea, even a vague one (but not too vague like “this year”), we could organize ourselves better, and most importantly, we won’t bother you with this topic anymore. That’s all.

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I completely understand why you’re asking. If I were in your position I’d want a clearer timeframe too.

We don’t have a specific release window we can share yet. As we’ve learned many times while building Elements, plans can change quickly as priorities shift and new challenges appear!

Because of that, I always try to give the same advice: it’s best not to base business decisions around unreleased products or features.

What I can say is that opening things up to the community is absolutely something we want to do, and we’re actively exploring ways to make that happen. Our hope is that we’ll be able to start rolling out something later this year.

As soon as we have something concrete to share, you can be sure we’ll let everyone know.

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Thanx @dan we appreciate any information…

I know it’s a hard place for you to be…

Thanx for all the hard work!

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Right. But the problem for some of us is that this means “don’t use Elements.”

I’m at a crossroads at the moment. I need to deploy new sites in the summer. Elements doesn’t currently fully meet my needs. Alternative products do. So there’s a strong chance that no matter how much I like Elements from a designing standpoint, I’ll just have to move those new designs over to another product that has everything I need.

You’re running a dangerous line with some who would be key to your long-term success. The “surprises” of the Realmac-only Store (for the moment), the new Realmac for-money Components, and the Realmac hosting coupled with the lack of any useful information about completing the CMS and fleshing out other things that have been requested (and then removing Marketplace from the forum), has most of us contemplating our early choice of Elements as our future building block.

We don’t need specific dates, but right now what’s worse is that we don’t even understand your priorities. Indeed, the only clue is that what’s happened recently is mostly “things that generate Realmac more revenue.” But things like the Gallery Component, while appreciated (and purchased) aren’t exactly solving my problems. Moreover, opening to third-party developers would have probably given us multiple Gallery Component options.

To me, it feels like you don’t have enough faith in third-party developers generating more momentum for Elements. That’s a classic mistake that long-term hurts companies that make it. (And this is from someone who once had the job title Senior Evangelist in Silicon Valley).

My suggestion is that you give us the top five priorities, in order, that you’re executing. We can make our own decisions about the “when” of those.

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The honest answer is that we’re not in a position to publish priority lists or timelines right now. We’ve learned repeatedly while building Elements that plans can shift quickly as new challenges appear or opportunities arise. What looks straightforward from the outside can sometimes turn out to be much more involved once we get into the work.

You’re right that some of the recent work has been focused on things that generate revenue (we’re a real business not a charity, or funded by investors). Elements still isn’t a sustainable business on its own, and until it is we have to make sure the company itself remains healthy. Without that, none of the rest of this matters.

That said, opening up the ecosystem is absolutely something we want to do. We firmly believe a strong community will play a big role in the long-term success of Elements. Our hope is that we’ll be able to start rolling out ways for the community to share components later this year.

In the meantime, Elements will continue to evolve rapidly. If it doesn’t yet meet the needs of a particular project, then it’s completely reasonable to use another tool for that job.

Our focus is on making Elements better with every release so that it becomes the obvious choice for more and more people.

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While the marketplace is being developed, will developers be able to distribute or sell Elements components outside of the Realmac store?

Or will the marketplace eventually be the only supported distribution channel?

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I think if anyone wants to, they can already do so by simply selling the Pack on its own (as if it were a stack or project file), which, however, has the disadvantage of having the files accessible and editable by anyone.

Honestly, after spending a lot of time developing 2-3 components, I’m also considering selling the Pack on my store.

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@massiomo
That’s probably the most sensible approach at the moment. Michelangelo from MultiThemes is already doing something similar in combination with selling his projects.

It’s a bit “Stacks-like.” Developers take a certain risk that some components might be shared for free, and as an end user you might have to give up the convenience of a proper update mechanism.

However, this approach also gives you as third-party developers the opportunity to analyze the market and figure out the potential of RW Elements in the future—and whether it’s worth investing time in developing components.

@dan
What I would really appreciate here would be some new, updated tutorial videos on how to use the Build Tools / Component Editor. Maybe using one or two simple examples that show how non-programmers can make practical use of it.

Whenever I have some time, I try to work with it again, but I just can’t seem to get comfortable with it.

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Ciao @Massimo, if Realmac opens this possibility I would say everything is fine. Currently you are not allowed to do so, that is mentioned in the API documentation.

https://docs.realmacsoftware.com/elements-docs/elements-language/
:warning: Do not share or sell Dev Packs: They’re not optimised for distribution and can cause performance issues if misused.

I did that in the past, and Realmac asked me to stop.

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“DevPacks do have some overhead because Elements needs to, amongst other things, watch for file changes and compile your DevPack on the fly. That overhead is one of the reasons why we don’t allow distributing DevPacks widely.”

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:backhand_index_pointing_right: Details on Pack distribution can be found here.

While we develop the store system, anyone is free to distribute projects with custom components in them as a short-term workaround.

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