Native federation v4 | RC5

[Aukevanoost]

Update! Native Federation v4 is coming!

The Native Federation team has been busy over the last couple of weeks preparing a new major version! Right now, the latest stable version is v3.5.2, which is incorporated in the module-federation-plugin repository. This next version will be completely different! This means that some interfaces and contracts may have been moved from your trusted old export to a new one. I'd like to take you all on a trip through the future plans of Native Federation! Finally, I've provided a small migration guide and example repo that shows the major differences in Native Federation v4.

Angular playground: https://github.com/Aukevanoost/native-federation-examples-ng/tree/v4

Angular migration guide: https://github.com/native-federation/angular-adapter/blob/main/MIGRATION_GUIDE.md

TL;DR

In May 2026, we're planning on releasing Native Federation v4 together with Angular 22! There is a lot to be excited about in the new major, but we need your feedback! Feel free to mess around with v4 in your architectures and let us know what you're missing! Read more in the other announcements: https://github.com/orgs/native-federation/discussions/11.

Goal 1: Improving clarity

First off, Native Federation was hidden in the module-federation-plugin repo. We migrated the codebase to its own ecosystem at https://github.com/native-federation. This GitHub organization will serve as a space for the community to work on, discuss, and read up on the newest features of the NF ecosystem. We've enabled GitHub discussions, so feel free to say hi! Secondly, while NF was pushing hard on ESM, the library itself was still CommonJS. Therefore, we have migrated the codebase to a fully ESM library! (This means that your package.json needs the "type": "module" property).

Goal 2: Parity with Module Federation

While not completely there yet, we strive for parity with Module Federation—especially when it comes to dependency sharing. Therefore, I am happy to announce a stable new runtime called "the Orchestrator" with advanced dependency sharing capabilities. This orchestrator is fully opt-in for backwards compatibility. Find it here: https://github.com/native-federation/orchestrator

Goal 3: Improving DX and performance

This has been an ongoing goal for the last couple of months. Native Federation has more steps to complete during build time. That means we need to heavily invest in caching bundled artifacts to avoid redundant builds and look into ways to minimize the work that needs to be done by the builder/bundler. While we've already implemented most of these features in v3 (most are opt-in), we are excited to share an experimental new feature in v4 called "dense chunks." The main idea is to compress the size of the remoteEntry.json by storing the generated chunk files in a separate property. Read more on it here: #5

So, what's next?

While you can already test out the new features in the beta variant (npm i @angular-architects/native-federation-v4), we will keep refining and fine-tuning the v4 release. We plan to release it together with the Angular 22 release in May. That brings us to the second point: while currently Angular receives first-class support, we're planning on branching out to support other frameworks fully as well—and you can help! Let us know if you're interested in contributing. Finally, with the v4 release, we're planning on wider support for older Angular versions where possible. That means when NG22 comes out, we will keep supporting at least the last two majors (21 and 20 in that case).

Let us know what you think!

We've said it before, but this community lives on feedback! Check out the playground repository and let us know what you are missing in Native Federation. Read more in the announcement: https://github.com/orgs/native-federation/discussions/11

"This is your stage, your microphone, get up here!" — Jem Siow