CoreUI free Angular admin template: a Bootstrap 5 dashboard shell on Angular 22

An admin shell, not a design system

This repository is a starter application rather than a library. It is a free admin dashboard template for Angular 22 built on Bootstrap 5, and what you get is a working shell: layout, navigation, sidebar, header, sample pages, and the styling pipeline, all wired up so that npm start shows you something immediately.

The template sits on top of two published packages. @coreui/angular is the component library the template is built with, and @coreui/coreui is the underlying stylesheet, both published on npm under the CoreUI scope. Around them the dependency list adds chart.js at 4.5.1 or newer with @coreui/chartjs and @coreui/angular-chartjs as the CoreUI integration layer, ngx-scrollbar for the custom scrollbar behaviour that admin layouts tend to need, @angular/cdk for the underlying behaviours, and @angular/localize for internationalisation.

The marketing framing in the project description is that the code is transparent and free of redundant components, and that the CoreUI Layout API lets you customise the project for almost any device, mobile, web or web app. The claim worth checking is the last one. Whether the layout API actually adapts to your screens or whether you end up rewriting the layout is a question you can only answer by trying it, and the demo linked from the README is the fastest way to do that.

The template is MIT licensed, with the copyright line reading Copyright 2026 creativeLabs Łukasz Holeczek, and it is one of four free variants alongside Bootstrap, React and Vue versions of the same product.

What the package manifest actually pins

The package.json is the honest description of what you are adopting, and it is worth reading line by line before you clone anything.

The Angular framework packages are all pinned at 22.2.2 or newer, from @angular/core through @angular/router, @angular/forms, @angular/cdk, @angular/aria and @angular/localize. The template tracks the current Angular major, which means it is a moving target: the repository is versioned 5.7.36, matching the @coreui/angular and @coreui/icons-angular version at 5.7.36, while @coreui/coreui sits at 5.9.1 and @coreui/icons at 3.1.0.

The Node engine requirement is explicit: ^22.22.3, or ^24.15.0, or ^26.0.0, with npm at 10 or newer. That is a narrow set, and it is the constraint most likely to break a build on an existing corporate machine.

The test story has changed recently. The dev dependencies now list vitest at 5.0.4 or newer with @vitest/browser-playwright, plus playwright at 1.64.0 or newer and jsdom at 30.1.2 or newer, rather than the Karma and Jasmine setup that Angular projects used to carry. The scripts reflect the Angular CLI conventions: ng serve -o for start, ng build, ng build with the watch flag and development configuration, ng test, and a prebuild step that runs the tests with the watch flag off so a build fails on a broken test.

That prebuild hook is the detail with the most day to day consequence, and it is easy to be annoyed by it. Every production build runs the test suite first, which is a defensible choice and a slow one on a large suite.

Cloning, starting the dev server, and the release download

There are two documented ways to get the project. You can download the latest release from the repository, or clone it:

git clone https://github.com/coreui/coreui-free-angular-admin-template.git

After that, the npm scripts do the work. The start script runs ng serve -o, which serves the app and opens it in a browser, build runs ng build, and watch runs ng build with the watch flag against the development configuration so changes recompile as you save. The test script runs ng test.

The documentation has a Quick Start section with a prerequisites note that names Node.js as a requirement, and separate Installation and Basic usage sections for the setup detail. The project also links a live demo of the free Angular template, which is worth opening before you install anything, because the demo shows the layout in a working state and the Layout API behaviour in motion.

The release numbering is separate from the Angular version. The releases are 5.7.36 from 2026-10-12, 5.7.35 from 2026-10-08 and 5.7.33 from 2026-10-02, so the template follows a 5.7 patch line that tracks Angular 22 rather than the Angular version itself. The repository has a CHANGELOG.md for tracking that history, and the config block in package.json records the theme as default and the library short version as 5.7.

The data grid and the scheduler are not in the free template

This is the point most potential adopters get wrong, so it is worth stating plainly: the two features that usually justify an admin template are not part of the free version.

The CoreUI Angular Data Grid is a separate package. The project describes it as handling 100,000 or more rows with sorting, filtering, virtualization, column pinning, inline editing and CSV export, and it uses the same markup and stylesheet the template already uses, so it does not look bolted on. Installing it is a separate npm install of @coreui/angular-data-grid, and it is described as a separate add-on rather than part of CoreUI PRO, with one licence covering JavaScript, React and Vue.

The CoreUI Angular Scheduler is the other one, with six views, day, week, month, agenda, resources and timeline, plus drag and drop, RFC 5545 recurrence and DST-safe time handling. It is installed with npm install @coreui/angular-scheduler and is likewise a separate add-on.

So the free template gives you the dashboard shell, and the table and calendar components come with their own licensing. If your application is mostly charts and forms, the free template is genuinely enough. If it is a back office where people live in a data grid all day, then the paid add-on is the actual product, and the template is the sample application around it.

The project also lists a separate commercial product, CoreUI Pro, in several themes for Angular, Bootstrap, React, Next.js and Vue, and describes the free template as the counterpart to that paid line.

The other CoreUI templates, and choosing between them

The project maintains parallel free templates for four frameworks: Bootstrap, Angular, React and Vue. They are separate repositories under the same organisation, and the README links all four side by side, so the framework decision and the CoreUI decision are two separate choices.

That framing is useful because the Bootstrap version is the one to consider if you want CoreUI without an Angular dependency. The components and the stylesheet are the CoreUI layer, and the templates are the framework-specific shell on top. If the components are what you want and Angular is not, the Bootstrap repository may be the better starting point, and the fact that a single licence covers JavaScript, React and Vue for the paid add-ons suggests the component layer is maintained across frameworks deliberately.

The same applies to the paid line, where CoreUI Pro exists for Angular, Bootstrap, React, Next.js and Vue, with default, light, modern and bright themes shown in the documentation.

For an adopter, the practical question is therefore twofold: does the CoreUI component set do what you need, and are you committed to Angular. The free Angular template answers the first question only for Angular users, and the demo linked from the README is the fastest way to judge the components and the layout on their own.

Where a free admin template stops being enough

The first limitation is the version coupling. The Angular packages are pinned to the 22.2 line, the template tracks the current Angular major, and the Node requirement is narrow. A team on an older Angular version, or one that upgrades Angular on a schedule, inherits a template that wants to be upgraded in step with it. The 5.7 patch releases every few days show an active project, but active means the template moves, and the version numbers in the dependency list move with it.

The second limitation is what a template cannot be. There is no authentication, no role model, no API layer and no routing for your domain, because a starter has no idea what your domain is. The value is in the shell and the components, and everything above that line is yours to build.

The third is the licensing split, which is easy to hit accidentally. The template itself is MIT, but the data grid and the scheduler are separately licensed add-ons, and the paid Pro templates are a different product. A team that assumes the free template covers its table requirements and then discovers otherwise has a procurement conversation rather than a technical one.

On maintenance, the repository is not archived, the last push was on 2026-10-12, and release 5.7.36 was published the same day. The project also has a documented community section and a versioning section in the README, and the npm packages carry a next channel badge for prerelease versions if you want to track changes ahead of the stable tag.

Editorial conclusion

This template fits a team that wants a working admin shell for an Angular 22 application quickly, with a component library, chart.js integration and a responsive layout already wired together. It is a poor fit if you need the data grid or the scheduler, since both are paid add-ons installed separately, and a poor fit if your project is not on Angular 22, because the dependency set is pinned to the 22.2 line. Before adopting, read the Basic usage and What is included sections of the project documentation, run npm start to see the shell with its sample pages, and confirm that the version of @coreui/angular you install matches the template version rather than drifting ahead of it.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. coreui/coreui-free-angular-admin-template on GitHub
2. License: MIT
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases