Google forked WebKit for Chrome over architectural disagreements. Now powers Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, and most of the web.
WebKit is the browser engine originally forked by Apple from KHTML in 2001, used in Safari and all iOS browsers. Blink is Google's fork of WebKit's WebCore component, used in Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Samsung Internet, and most other modern browsers. The engine handles HTML parsing, CSS layout, rendering, and JavaScript integration.
On April 3, 2013, Google dropped a bombshell on the web development world: after years of contributing to WebKit alongside Apple, they were forking the rendering engine into a new project called Blink. The announcement was polite and professional, but the underlying message was unmistakable — Google and Apple's visions for the web's rendering engine had become irreconcilable.
The core conflict was architectural. Chrome used a multi-process architecture where each tab ran in its own sandboxed process — a design fundamental to Chrome's security and stability. WebKit, as maintained primarily by Apple, used a different multi-process model (WebKit2) that was optimized for Apple's ecosystem. Supporting both architectures in one codebase had become a source of mounting complexity. According to Apple, they had directly asked Google if they would contribute their multi-process support back to WebKit, and Google said no.
Beyond the multi-process question, the two companies simply wanted different things. Google wanted to experiment rapidly with new web platform features, iterating fast and breaking things if necessary. Apple prioritized stability, backward compatibility, and tight integration with iOS and macOS. These are both reasonable positions, but they're fundamentally incompatible when you're sharing a codebase.
Google's first act was dramatic: they identified 7,000 files and 4.5 million lines of code in WebKit that Chrome didn't need and planned to remove them. The split allowed both projects to move faster — WebKit could optimize for Apple's priorities without worrying about Chrome's needs, and Blink could experiment freely.
The aftermath reshaped the browser landscape entirely. Opera, which had already announced it was dropping its own Presto engine, adopted Blink. Microsoft abandoned EdgeHTML and switched Edge to Chromium/Blink in 2019. By 2025, Blink powers approximately 81% of global web traffic, making it the most dominant rendering engine in history — a level of monoculture that has raised serious concerns about web standards and competition.
Opera announces it will drop Presto engine and switch to Chromium
Google announces Blink fork of WebKit
Google begins removing 7,000+ unused files from WebKit codebase
Opera releases first Blink-based browser
Chrome 28 ships as first stable release with Blink
Microsoft announces Edge will switch from EdgeHTML to Chromium/Blink
New Chromium-based Microsoft Edge launches
Blink powers ~81% of global web traffic
Blink's fork from WebKit is one of the most consequential forks in computing history. It enabled Chrome to move faster, adopt new web standards more quickly, and maintain its dominant market position. But it also created a browser engine monoculture that many web standards advocates find deeply troubling — when one engine controls 81% of the web, the line between 'implementing standards' and 'defining them' gets dangerously blurry.
The fork also triggered a cascade of engine consolidation: Opera abandoned Presto, Microsoft abandoned EdgeHTML, and the browser engine landscape collapsed from five viable engines to essentially three (Blink, WebKit, Gecko) — with Blink dominating to an extent that the others are increasingly marginalized.