What happened with faker.js

I am seeing the repo is completely blank with a message saying

What really happened with Aaron Swartz?

I am wondering if it is still safe to keep using it or we should switch to another alternative. Here is the link to the repo and this is how it looks like

3 Answers

It seems Marak, the primary maintainer for Faker, has deliberately pulled Faker's source code and history from their GitHub repository and published a non-functional package in its place.

For context, Marak has become known in recent history for some rather controversial comments regarding the late Aaron Swartz (whom they reference in Faker's updated README) & advocating for compensation for their open-source contributions. You can see the comments on both this Hacker News thread from Nov 2020 and this Reddit thread from today (January 5th, 2022) for additional context.

If you continue to need the functionality Faker provides, npm maintains old versions for install - just be deliberate with the version you're installing, i.e., npm i faker@5.5.3. The full source and history is also maintained in @withshepherd's fork on GitHub (published on NPM as @withshepherd/faker).

Unfortunately this is a known risk of this type of dependency ecosystem.

TLDR: Faker is now a community project. Visit faker-js/faker, docs at fakerjs.dev and use npm install @faker-js/faker.

faker.js has now made its way to a community repo and has its new home at

FAQ - What happened to the original faker.js?

This project was originally created and hosted at - however around 4th Jan, 2022 - the author decided to delete the repository (for unknown reasons).

In the interest of the community, it has been decided that faker.js will continue to be maintained here and all help in its development will be appreciated.

in last 24 hours, all previously active npm packages are uploaded back into @faker-js/faker

UPDATE: on Jan 14th, the new @faker-js community mostly completed the new look of the Faker with a nice update in the new documentation site:

I am using faker-js and its working fine. Be sure to clear cache (including cookies) from browser before update any faker data on your code.

You can import it following ths

const { faker } = require('@faker-js/faker');
const randomName = faker.name.findName(); // returns a random name

Link: