It has always been said that GWT is active when similar questions are asked in the forum.
However, given that the last version, 2.8.2, was released on Oct 19, 2017 and was a bugfix for the 2.8.0 version, released on Oct 20, 2016, I can't see it as "active".
At least it smells bad!
Even the 1.0 release of Elemental can't be used, because it requires newer components than the pre-packaged version.
It is a sad thing, because I work on a large project using GWT since its 1.5.0 version, and our project is actively developed and still evolving.
I hope GWT 2.9 is out "soon", because we're planning to switch to Java 11 in the coming months, and it would be a burden to maintain a separated Java version only for the frontend part (been there, done that with Java 8).
The fact is that since Google left the project, things are way too slow.
Understandable, as it is based on best effor from the brave developers, but still disheartening.
Still, I don't loose hope that GWT will be still maintained.