React Installation

React has been designed from the start for gradual adoption. You can use as little or as much React as you need. Whether you want to get a taste of React, add some interactivity to an HTML page, or start a complex React-powered app, this section will help you get started.

Create React App

Create React App is a comfortable environment for learning React, and is the best way to start building a new single-page application in React.

It sets up your development environment so that you can use the latest JavaScript features, provides a nice developer experience, and optimizes your app for production. You must have Node >= 14.0.0 and npm >= 5.6 on your machine. To create a project, run:

npx create-react-app my-app
cd my-app
npm start

Create React App doesn’t handle backend logic or databases; it just creates a frontend build pipeline so that you can use it with any backend you want. Under the hood, it uses Babel and Webpack, but you don’t need to know anything about them.

When you’re ready to deploy to production, running npm run build will create an optimized build of your app in the build folder. You can learn more about Create React App from its README and the User Guide.

Next.js

Next.js is a popular and lightweight framework for static and server‑rendered applications built with React. It includes styling and routing solutions out of the box, and assumes that you’re using Node.js as the server environment.