# SPFx Toolchain Changes: Upgrade, Replace or Freeze | AvantIT > SPFx moved from gulp to Heft, 1.24 brings React 18 and a new CLI replaces Yeoman. How to decide per web part, plus Project Online retiring on 30 September. Canonical: https://www.avantit.pt/en/newsletter/web-parts-still-run-can-you-still-build-them/ Source: AvantIT — https://www.avantit.pt (Microsoft Partner, Matosinhos, Portugal) --- [All editions](https://www.avantit.pt/en/newsletter/) AvantIT Insider · Edition 3 # Your Web Parts Still Run. Can You Still Build Them? ![Arsénio Ferraz] Arsénio Ferraz 2026-09-28 6 min ![AvantIT Insider cover: your custom SharePoint web parts still run, the question is whether anyone can still build them. SPFx timeline from gulp to Heft, SPFx 1.24 with React 18, a new CLI replacing Yeoman and the Online Workbench retiring on 1 December, with four options: upgrade, out-of-the-box, rebuild and freeze] Most custom SharePoint web parts in European SMEs were built once, deployed, and forgotten. They still run. But ask someone to change a label and rebuild one, and you may find that the toolchain it was built with no longer exists in that form. Between December 2025 and early 2027, Microsoft is replacing almost every piece of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) developer stack. ## What shipped (and what’s going away) Project Online retires this Wednesday, 30 September. After that date, Project Web App (PWA) sites and their data are no longer accessible. There is no read-only period, and no extension has been announced. Microsoft points customers to Planner (which now absorbs Project for the web), Project Server Subscription Edition or Project desktop. For an SME: if anyone still opens a PWA site, export schedules, timesheets and documents today. The migration can wait a few weeks. The export cannot. (Microsoft Tech Community) SPFx 1.24 is in beta, with general availability (GA) targeted for October 2026. The headline is React 18 support, the most requested item in the framework’s history according to Microsoft. The same roadmap update confirms that a new SPFx CLI (command-line interface) replaces the Yeoman generator in version 1.25, planned for December 2026 or January 2027. Separately, the SPFx Online Workbench retires on 1 December 2026. For an SME: nothing breaks in production, but every custom web part will need a toolchain pass the next time someone touches it. (SPFx roadmap, August 2026, SPFx 1.23 announcement) Copilot Studio is adding cost visibility for agents, in public preview. Makers will see per-agent consumption costs in the Monitor tab, plus the cost of evaluations and test chats (Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs 571196, 571195, 571194). For an SME: consumption-billed agents have been hard to budget. This is the first native way to see what each agent costs before the invoice arrives. It is a preview, so check the numbers against your actual billing. ## In focus: when a custom web part stops being worth it The situation. A typical SME tenant has somewhere between five and fifteen custom web parts, built by different people over the years: a news carousel, a KPI tile, a request form, a document browser. Most were built on SPFx versions from 1.11 to 1.18, with gulp, React 16 or 17, and Node.js 14 to 18. They work. The problem appears the day someone asks for a change. Since SPFx 1.22 (December 2025), the build toolchain moved from gulp to Heft. Microsoft’s own documentation warns that simply updating package.json on an older project will cause build failures, and points to the CLI for Microsoft 365 upgrade command instead. SPFx 1.22 and later expect Node.js 22 LTS (long-term support). SPFx 1.24 adds React 18. So a “fifteen-minute label change” on a 2019 web part can turn into two days of toolchain archaeology. The options. There are four honest paths for each web part: - Upgrade and keep. Bring it to the current SPFx version and maintain it. - Replace with out-of-the-box (OOTB). Modern SharePoint has absorbed a lot: Highlighted content, Quick links, Events, list formatting, Brand Center. - Rebuild on a different surface. Power Apps for forms with approvals, or a Copilot Component (still in preview) for things people should reach from Copilot. - Freeze. Leave it untouched, document it, and accept the risk. The criteria. Upgrade when the web part carries business logic that OOTB cannot do, is used every week, and you expect to change it in the next twelve months. Replace with OOTB when it is mostly presentation: carousels, link grids, styled lists. A large share of web parts from the 2018 to 2021 era fall into this group. Rebuild in Power Apps when it is really a form with an approval behind it. Freeze only when it is stable, rarely used and nobody will ask for changes, and put a review date on it. The hidden cost. It is not the upgrade. It is the source code. Many SMEs do not have it. The package sits in the app catalog, and the source lives on a former supplier’s laptop. Without source, there is no upgrade path: only replace or freeze. The second hidden cost is third-party libraries (older Fluent UI or PnP controls versions) pinned to React 17, which can block the move to React 18 even when your own code is fine. What we would do. Inventory first, decide per web part, and upgrade only the ones that earn it. For those, wait for SPFx 1.24 GA and upgrade once, rather than going to 1.23 now and again in a month. Picture a 60-person company with twelve custom web parts: in a typical review, three or four deserve an upgrade, most of the rest become OOTB pages in an afternoon, and one or two are forms that should have been Power Apps from the start. ## Do this week - If you still use Project Online, open every PWA site today and export project plans, timesheets and attached documents before Wednesday. - List your custom solutions. In the SharePoint admin center, go to More features, then Apps, and open the app catalog. Write down every custom package and, next to each one, who holds the source code. - Ask for the SPFx version of each one. Your developer or partner can read it from the project’s .yo-rc.json file in minutes. Anything below 1.22 is on the old gulp toolchain. Tell us how many custom web parts your tenant has, and whether you have the source for all of them. The answers are usually more interesting than people expect. This edition was first published in the [AvantIT Insider newsletter on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arsenioferraz_your-custom-sharepoint-web-parts-still-run-ugcPost-7510325822713430017-PnuB). Comments and discussion happen there. Share: [Subscribe on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arsenioferraz_your-custom-sharepoint-web-parts-still-run-ugcPost-7510325822713430017-PnuB) ## Other editions [Edition 4 Your Leavers' OneDrives Are on a Countdown If someone left your company before July and you removed their licence, their OneDrive is probably already archived. Nobody can open it, not even an admin, until someone pays. And from July 2027, Microsoft can start deleting it.](https://www.avantit.pt/en/newsletter/unlicensed-onedrive-countdown/)[Edition 2 The Premium Connector Bill Nobody Sees Coming A flow runs for months on standard connectors. Someone adds one SQL Server action, and every employee who runs it suddenly needs a premium license. 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