connected-react-router: A Security Guide for an Inactive Package

connected-react-router is a library that syncs React Router state into a Redux store, and its defining security fact today is maintenance status: it is inactive, has not shipped a new npm release in a long time, and has no official React 18 support — which turns a once-popular convenience into a dependency that quietly blocks the upgrades you need for security. The code is not exploding; it is calcifying. That is a different kind of risk than a CVE, and it is easy to ignore until it strands you.

Despite the stall, "connected react router" still pulls hundreds of thousands of weekly downloads. Popularity and maintenance are not the same thing, and conflating them is exactly how teams end up on abandoned dependencies.

What it does and why it was popular

The package mirrors the router's location into Redux so you can access route data from the store, dispatch navigation actions, and time-travel through route changes with Redux DevTools. In a codebase built on React Router v5 and a Redux-everything architecture, that was genuinely useful.

import { connectRouter, routerMiddleware } from 'connected-react-router';
import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history';

const history = createBrowserHistory();
const rootReducer = combineReducers({
  router: connectRouter(history),
  // ... your reducers
});

The design tied it tightly to React Router v5's history model. That tight coupling is precisely why it did not survive the ecosystem's move forward.

The maintenance and compatibility problem

Two facts define the current risk:

1. It is inactive. No new versions have been published to npm in a long stretch, and the repository shows little recent pull-request or issue activity. When a dependency is dormant, any new advisory in it — or in its transitive tree — sits unpatched indefinitely, because there is no one shipping a fix.

2. No official React 18 support. The latest published version does not officially support React 18. Users asked repeatedly about compatibility and ended up resorting to patch-package to force it to work with React 18. A community fork, connected-react-router-for-react18, exists to bridge the gap, but it is also inactive and has not published new releases recently. So the "connected-react-router react 18" path is either a manual patch you maintain yourself or a fork that is itself unmaintained. Neither is a healthy long-term dependency.

React Router itself moved to v6 and beyond with a completely different API, and connected-react-router was built for v5. Upgrading your router forward and keeping this package is not really possible — the coupling breaks.

Why an inactive dependency is a security issue

The concrete danger is not that connected-react-router contains a known exploit today. It is that it acts as an anchor. To adopt React 18 or a modern React Router, you have to remove it, and until you do, everything downstream that wants a newer React or router is blocked. That is how a dormant package leaves you stuck on old, potentially vulnerable versions of things you actually care about. The library's staleness becomes your whole app's staleness.

Check what it is holding back:

npm ls connected-react-router react react-router
npm outdated
npm audit

If npm outdated shows React or React Router pinned low specifically because of this package's peer requirements, that is the anchor effect made visible.

Migrating off it

The modern pattern makes this package unnecessary. React Router v6+ exposes hooks (useNavigate, useLocation, useParams) that give components direct access to route state without duplicating it into Redux. If you still want route data in the store for a specific reason, you can subscribe to the router in a small piece of your own code rather than depending on an abandoned library.

A realistic migration path:

1. Inventory every place that reads state.router or dispatches router actions.
2. Upgrade React Router and replace those reads with the router hooks.
3. Remove connected-react-router and its middleware from the store config.
4. Delete any patch-package patch you were carrying to keep it alive.

An SCA scan in CI will keep flagging the dependency and any transitive advisory under it until it is gone, which is a useful forcing function; a tool such as Safeguard surfaces exactly this kind of end-of-support risk across a repo. If you are also weighing scanners for ongoing dependency monitoring, our Snyk comparison covers how end-of-life and maintenance signals get reported.

FAQ

Is connected-react-router still maintained?

No. It is inactive, with no new npm releases in a long time and little recent repository activity. New advisories in it or its dependencies are unlikely to receive an upstream fix.

Does connected-react-router work with React 18?

Not officially. The latest published version does not support React 18, and users have relied on patch-package or the community connected-react-router-for-react18 fork, which is itself inactive. Neither is a sound long-term choice.

What should I use instead?

React Router v6+ hooks such as useNavigate, useLocation, and useParams give components direct route access without mirroring state into Redux, which removes the need for this package entirely.

Why is an inactive dependency a security problem if it has no known CVE?

Because it anchors your app to old versions. Keeping it blocks upgrades to React and React Router, which in turn blocks you from taking security fixes available only in newer releases of those libraries.