How to setup React.js on MacOS

In this article, you will find a step by step guide on how to install React on MacOS. It follows the philosophy of having one IDE to manage most of your web development tasks. That's how you can focus on your task at hand as a developer. However, if you like to compose your development environment with lightweight tools rather than with an full-blown IDE, checkout my personal MacOS web development setup. Nevertheless, if you just want to find a way for getting started with React on Mac OS quickly, follow the instructions below.

Note: Everything below (Node/NPM via NVM, VS Code, Git) can be installed via Homebrew too. Homebrew is a package manager for MacOS applications that is widely used by developers. If you want to get started in a more professional way, check out Homebrew, install it, and try to install all applications below with it. You will find more about it in my personal MacOS web development setup from above.

Node.js and NPM on MacOS

Since you are going to use JavaScript for your React development on MacOS, there is no way around Node.js and NPM. Node.js is a JavaScript runtime which makes it possible to run JavaScript outside of the browser. The underlying node package manager (NPM) is used to install frameworks and libraries, such as React.js, to your project on the command line. They are called node packages. You will see later on how this works out on the command line for MacOS users installing libraries for React.

In order to install and manage Node.js on your MacOS machine, you can install it from their official website. However, I encourage you to checkout nvm. It's a node version manager that allows you to manage multiple node versions, to upgrade and downgrade node versions and to be flexible in choosing a node version for your project at hand. You can find the installation instructions in the GitHub repository. Installing node will install npm (node package manager) as well. The node package manager is used to install libraries/frameworks (node packages), such as React, on the command line to your project.

Visual Studio Code on MacOS

There are plenty of editors and IDEs out there to develop web applications. Depending on your personal, project or company requirements, you can choose from a range of lightweight editors to full-blown IDEs. Visual Studio Code is a solution in between. Many developers, operating on MacOS but also Windows, enjoy using it. That's why my recommendation would be Visual Studio Code to start developing React applications on MacOS. The installation on a MacOS machine is simple: Navigate to the official Visual Studio Code website and download the recent version of VS Code. Afterward, install it and check if everything is working when you open it. That's it for the installation of an editor/IDE on your machine.

If you want to use another editor/IDE, it is up to you. But keep in mind that a couple of the following steps are building up on top of Visual Studio Code. However, it should be possible to substitute these steps for your own editor/IDE.

Node and NPM in VS Code's Integrated Terminal

If you are just getting started with web development, you should create a dedicated folder on your machine to manage all your web development projects. It's up to you to divide the folder into subfolders. For instance, there could be a folder for React applications and another one for plain Node.js applications. Once you have your folder for your projects, open this folder in Visual Studio Code.

In Visual Studio Code you should be able to open a tab which is called "Terminal" at the bottom. That's your integrated command line in Visual Studio Code to install node packages with NPM or to start/test your project. It's up to you to use the integrated terminal or a standalone command line interface (e.g. the built-in command line or something like iterm2) for your MacOS machine.

Now, you should check whether the Node.js installation for MacOS was successful. On the command line, type the following commands. They should output the versions for Node.js and NPM.

node --version
npm --version

Vite for React on MacOS

Vite allows you to start React applications with zero-configuration. If you are going to read "The Road to React", you will use Vite as well. It's the simplest approach to learn React without worrying about all the tooling around it. Now create your first first React.js application via VS Code's integrated terminal by giving it the following instruction:

npm create vite@latest my-react-project -- --template react

Afterward, you can navigate into the project on the command line and start it with npm:

cd my-react-project
npm install
npm run dev

The command line should give you an output where you can find the application in the browser. The default should be http://localhost:5173/. If you are only using Safari on your MacOS machine, I can recommend you to install Chrome as well to access the developer environment and the React Developer Tools which are available as Chrome extension. On the other side, now you have an advantage over the Windows developers, because you can debug your web applications in Safari too.

If you just want to learn React now, you could start to read The Road to React. It's a pragmatic book which guides you step by step through building a React application from scratch. Along the way, you will use lots of JavaScript and you will have lots of exercises to improve your React skills.

Optional: Git for Visual Studio Code and MacOS

At some point, you might want to share your projects on GitHub or collaborate with other people via the git version control. If you want to use GitHub as your platform of choice, you should create an account via their official website. GitHub is a social platform where you can follow other people (you could have your first social interaction with me), like (read: star) their projects or collaborate on open source projects with other people.

In order to have git available on the command line and in Visual Studio Code, you need to install it. You can find all the instructions on the official git website. However, I recommend it via Homebrew. If you want to follow this recommendation, checkout the Homebrew and Git/Github sections over here. After installing it, you should have it available on the command line.

git --version

If it doesn't show up in Visual Studio Code, you may have to restart it. Afterward, you should see that Visual Studio Code already comes with a git integration as well. It's convenient to use git from this integration, but you can also use it from the command line now. That's it for the git installation and the account creation on GitHub. Furthermore, you can check out this essential guide on how to use git and GitHub.

That's everything you need for a React development setup in MacOS. I hope you have everything to get started in React on your machine. Let me know what other tools you are using on MacOS in the comments below. Otherwise, if you are curios about the tools that I am using on my machine, head over to my personal development setup guide.