Burnout is real for open source maintainers

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Burnout Is Real for Open Source Maintainers: A Conversation with John-David Dalton, Creator of Lodash

Posted On: March 31, 2026

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Lodash creator John-David Dalton reflects on the project’s growth, the pressures of maintaining software used across the world, and the personal journey that led to stepping back and eventually rebuilding a sustainable path forward.

For more than a decade, Lodash has been one of the most widely used libraries in the JavaScript ecosystem. Its utilities appear in countless projects, often quietly working behind the scenes, and today has over 100 million npm downloads each day.

But like many critical open source tools, Lodash began as the work of a single maintainer. In a recent conversation, creator John-David Dalton reflected on the project’s growth, the pressures of maintaining software used across the world, and the personal journey that led to stepping back and eventually rebuilding a sustainable path forward.

Please note: This conversation was initially just a phone call, but was so powerful that we decided to turn it into a blog and share the audio via YouTube.

When a side project becomes infrastructure

Dalton’s involvement in open source began years before Lodash. Early experimentation with JavaScript utilities, performance testing, and cross browser compatibility gradually led him toward building a library developers could rely on.

When Lodash launched in 2012, the goal was simple: provide fast, reliable utilities that worked consistently across environments and improved the developer experience.

As the JavaScript ecosystem expanded, the library spread quickly. Increased adoption of npm and the growth of frameworks created demand for dependable building blocks. Lodash became one of the most widely used.

What began as a forked project evolved into infrastructure used across the ecosystem. Today the library sees more than 100 million downloads every day.

The pressure most users never see

When people talk about burnout in open source, the conversation often centers on workload, too many issues, too many requests, too much responsibility. Dalton’s experience shows that the story can be more complicated.

For years he maintained Lodash with a simple rhythm, working on the project a little each day. That routine kept the work manageable and allowed the project to evolve steadily.

Then life changed.

Dalton shared that the period when development on Lodash slowed significantly coincided with the loss of his mother. After that, his priorities shifted. While he continued releasing updates when possible, the project was no longer part of the daily routine that had sustained it for years.

Another major life transition followed in 2019 when he went through an amicable divorce. Even under positive circumstances, rebuilding stability after a major life change takes time. During that period he stepped back from most open source work to focus on restoring balance.

Like many maintainers, Dalton also felt the quiet pressure that comes with stepping away. There is often a concern that if contributions stop, relevance might disappear as well. What he discovered instead was that the relationships and trust built with the community remained.

Rebuilding after burnout

Returning to open source was not immediate. Dalton estimates it took roughly five years and several false starts before contributing again felt sustainable.

The recovery was less about productivity and more about balance. Therapy, exercise, healthier boundaries, and hobbies outside programming all played a role. One intentional change was stepping away from coding as a hobby. When both work and open source revolve around the same activity, having something separate becomes important.

For Dalton, the takeaway was straightforward. Long term sustainability matters more than constant output.

A new chapter for Lodash

Despite these challenges, Lodash has recently entered an important new phase.

With support from the OpenJS ecosystem, the project underwent a significant security and infrastructure overhaul designed to make long term maintenance more sustainable.

New governance structures were introduced, including a Technical Steering Committee and a dedicated security triage group to help guide releases and manage vulnerability reports. The project also restored continuous integration, implemented modern security tooling, and documented new workflows for handling issues and security updates.

The effort reflects a broader shift in how critical open source projects are maintained. Rather than relying on a single individual, responsibility is now shared across a community of contributors.

What the ecosystem can learn

Lodash is only one example, but the lesson applies widely across the JavaScript ecosystem.

Many packages developers depend on every day are maintained by individuals or very small teams. When those projects become successful, the expectations placed on maintainers can grow rapidly.

Supporting maintainers, contributing improvements, and respecting boundaries all help projects remain healthy.

Sometimes the most important step is simply remembering that behind every dependency is a person who created it.

Why these conversations matter

Talking openly about burnout helps the community better understand what maintainers experience as projects grow.

It also highlights why governance, shared responsibility, and sustainable maintenance models matter for the future of open source.

The story of Lodash shows both the impact a single project can have and the importance of supporting the people who maintain the tools the ecosystem relies on every day.