React product analytics installation

For Next.js, we recommend following the Next.js integration guide instead.

Install posthog-js and @posthog/react using your package manager:

npm install --save posthog-js @posthog/react

Add your environment variables to your .env.local file and to your hosting provider (e.g. Vercel, Netlify, AWS). You can find your project API key and host in your project settings. Including VITE_PUBLIC_ in their names ensures they are accessible in the frontend.

.env.local

VITE_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY=<ph_project_api_key>
VITE_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST=https://us.i.posthog.com

Integrate PostHog at the root of your app (such as main.jsx if you are using Vite).

React

// src/main.jsx
import { StrictMode } from 'react'
import { createRoot } from 'react-dom/client'
import './index.css'
import App from './App.jsx'
import posthog from 'posthog-js';
import { PostHogProvider } from '@posthog/react'

posthog.init(import.meta.env.VITE_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY, {
  api_host: import.meta.env.VITE_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST,
  defaults: '2025-11-30',
});

createRoot(document.getElementById('root')).render(
  <StrictMode>
    <PostHogProvider client={posthog}>
      <App />
    </PostHogProvider>
  </StrictMode>,
)

Don't directly import PostHog

Do not directly import posthog apart from installation as shown above. This will likely cause errors as the library might not be initialized yet. Initialization is handled automatically when you use the PostHogProvider and usePostHog hook.

Using React Router v7?

You need to set posthog-js and @posthog/react as external packages in your vite.config.ts file to avoid SSR errors.

vite.config.ts

// ... imports

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [tailwindcss(), reactRouter(), tsconfigPaths()],
  ssr: {
    noExternal: ['posthog-js', '@posthog/react']
  }
});

See our Remix docs for more details.

React product analytics installation

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