react-helmet-async vs react-helmet vs react-document-title
React Document Head Management Libraries Comparison
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What's React Document Head Management Libraries?

These libraries are designed to manage the document head in React applications, allowing developers to dynamically set the title, meta tags, and other head elements based on the current state of the application. This is crucial for SEO, social sharing, and improving the overall user experience by providing relevant information in the browser tab and search engine results. They help ensure that each page of a single-page application (SPA) has the appropriate metadata, which is essential for both user engagement and search engine optimization.

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react-helmet-async2,884,9032,22486.3 kB78a year agoApache-2.0
react-helmet2,395,96517,479-2235 years agoMIT
react-document-title72,6801,863-218 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-helmet-async vs react-helmet vs react-document-title

Head Management

  • react-helmet-async:

    react-helmet-async builds on the capabilities of react-helmet by adding support for asynchronous updates. This is particularly useful in scenarios where head management needs to be performed during server-side rendering, ensuring that the correct head elements are sent to the client.

  • react-helmet:

    react-helmet offers a more extensive API for managing not just the title but also meta tags, link tags, and script tags. This allows developers to customize the document head comprehensively, making it suitable for complex applications that require detailed SEO management.

  • react-document-title:

    react-document-title provides a simple API to manage the document title. It allows you to set the title of the document based on the current component's state, making it easy to ensure that the title reflects the content being displayed.

Server-Side Rendering Support

  • react-helmet-async:

    react-helmet-async is specifically designed for server-side rendering and handles asynchronous updates seamlessly, making it the best choice for applications that require SSR and optimal SEO.

  • react-helmet:

    react-helmet can be used with server-side rendering, but it does not handle asynchronous updates effectively, which can lead to issues in SSR scenarios.

  • react-document-title:

    react-document-title does not support server-side rendering, making it less suitable for applications that require SEO optimization through SSR.

Performance

  • react-helmet-async:

    react-helmet-async is optimized for performance in SSR scenarios, allowing for efficient head management without blocking rendering, which can enhance the overall performance of the application.

  • react-helmet:

    react-helmet can introduce some performance overhead due to its comprehensive feature set, but it is generally efficient for most applications. Care should be taken to manage updates properly to avoid unnecessary re-renders.

  • react-document-title:

    react-document-title is lightweight and has minimal performance overhead, making it ideal for applications that only need to manage the document title without additional features.

Ease of Use

  • react-helmet-async:

    react-helmet-async retains the ease of use of react-helmet while adding asynchronous capabilities, making it accessible for developers familiar with react-helmet.

  • react-helmet:

    react-helmet has a steeper learning curve due to its extensive features, but it provides powerful capabilities for those who need detailed control over the document head.

  • react-document-title:

    react-document-title is straightforward and easy to use, making it an excellent choice for developers who need a quick solution for managing document titles without complexity.

Community and Support

  • react-helmet-async:

    react-helmet-async, while newer, is gaining traction and benefits from the existing react-helmet community, providing a growing base of support and resources.

  • react-helmet:

    react-helmet has a larger community and extensive documentation, providing ample resources for troubleshooting and implementation.

  • react-document-title:

    react-document-title has a smaller community and fewer resources compared to the other libraries, which may limit support options.

How to Choose: react-helmet-async vs react-helmet vs react-document-title
  • react-helmet-async:

    Choose react-helmet-async if you need server-side rendering (SSR) support and want to manage head elements asynchronously. This package is particularly beneficial for applications that require improved performance and SEO capabilities when rendering on the server, as it allows for better handling of head updates during asynchronous operations.

  • react-helmet:

    Choose react-helmet if you require a more comprehensive solution for managing the document head, including meta tags, links, and scripts. It offers a rich API and is suitable for applications that need detailed control over the head elements, especially for SEO and social media sharing.

  • react-document-title:

    Choose react-document-title if you need a simple solution for managing the document title in a straightforward manner without additional overhead. It is lightweight and focuses solely on the document title, making it ideal for smaller projects or when you don't need extensive head management features.

Similar Npm Packages to react-helmet-async

react-helmet-async is a popular library for managing changes to the document head in React applications. It allows developers to dynamically update the title, meta tags, and other elements of the head section of their HTML document. This is particularly useful for improving SEO and ensuring that the correct metadata is displayed when users share links to your application. The asynchronous nature of react-helmet-async makes it suitable for server-side rendering and concurrent rendering scenarios, providing a seamless experience for both developers and users.

While react-helmet-async is a robust solution for managing document head, there are alternatives available that also serve similar purposes:

  • react-helmet is the original library for managing document head in React applications. It provides a straightforward API for setting the title, meta tags, and other head elements. Although it does not support asynchronous rendering out of the box, it is still widely used and appreciated for its simplicity and ease of use. If your application does not require server-side rendering or concurrent features, react-helmet can be a suitable choice for managing the document head.
  • react-meta-tags is another alternative that focuses on managing meta tags in React applications. It provides a simple way to define and update meta tags in your components. While it may not offer all the features of react-helmet-async or react-helmet, it is lightweight and easy to use, making it a good option for projects that require basic meta tag management without additional complexity.

For a comprehensive comparison of these libraries, check out the link: Comparing react-helmet vs react-helmet-async vs react-meta-tags.

Similar Npm Packages to react-helmet

react-helmet is a popular library for managing changes to the document head in React applications. It allows developers to dynamically set and update meta tags, titles, and other head elements, which is essential for SEO and improving the user experience. By using react-helmet, you can ensure that your application has the appropriate metadata for each page, making it more discoverable and shareable.

While react-helmet is widely used, there are alternatives that also provide functionality for managing document titles and meta tags:

  • react-document-title is a simpler alternative that focuses specifically on managing the document title in React applications. It provides a straightforward API for setting the title of your pages, making it easy to ensure that each route or component has a unique and relevant title. If your primary concern is just updating the document title without the additional overhead of managing other head elements, react-document-title is a lightweight solution.
  • react-helmet-async is an asynchronous version of react-helmet that is designed to work seamlessly with server-side rendering (SSR) and concurrent rendering in React. It allows for better performance and avoids potential issues with race conditions when rendering components that update the document head. If you are building an application that requires SSR or you want to ensure that your head management is optimized for performance, react-helmet-async is an excellent choice.

To see how these packages compare, check out the comparison: Comparing react-document-title vs react-helmet vs react-helmet-async.

Similar Npm Packages to react-document-title

react-document-title is a simple React component that allows developers to manage the document title of their web applications. It provides a straightforward way to set the title dynamically based on the current component or page, enhancing the user experience and improving SEO. While react-document-title is effective for managing document titles, there are other libraries that offer similar functionality with additional features. Here are a few alternatives:

  • react-helmet is a popular library for managing changes to the document head in React applications. It allows developers to set the title, meta tags, and other elements in the head section of the HTML document. react-helmet is particularly useful for applications that require fine-grained control over SEO-related elements, as it enables you to update the head dynamically based on the current route or component state. If you need a comprehensive solution for managing the document head, react-helmet is an excellent choice.
  • react-helmet-async is a fork of react-helmet that adds support for asynchronous rendering. This library is particularly useful in server-side rendering (SSR) scenarios, where you want to ensure that the document head is correctly populated before the page is sent to the client. react-helmet-async maintains the same API as react-helmet, making it easy to switch between the two. If your application uses SSR or requires better support for asynchronous updates, react-helmet-async is the way to go.
  • react-helmet-async is mentioned again here as it is the same library as the previous one. This highlights its importance as a robust alternative for managing the document head in React applications, especially in scenarios where asynchronous rendering is needed.

For a detailed comparison of these libraries, check out the following link: Comparing react-document-title vs react-helmet vs react-helmet-async.

README for react-helmet-async

react-helmet-async

CircleCI

Announcement post on Times Open blog

This package is a fork of React Helmet. <Helmet> usage is synonymous, but server and client now requires <HelmetProvider> to encapsulate state per request.

react-helmet relies on react-side-effect, which is not thread-safe. If you are doing anything asynchronous on the server, you need Helmet to encapsulate data on a per-request basis, this package does just that.

Usage

New is 1.0.0: No more default export! import { Helmet } from 'react-helmet-async'

The main way that this package differs from react-helmet is that it requires using a Provider to encapsulate Helmet state for your React tree. If you use libraries like Redux or Apollo, you are already familiar with this paradigm:

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import { Helmet, HelmetProvider } from 'react-helmet-async';

const app = (
  <HelmetProvider>
    <App>
      <Helmet>
        <title>Hello World</title>
        <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.tacobell.com/" />
      </Helmet>
      <h1>Hello World</h1>
    </App>
  </HelmetProvider>
);

ReactDOM.hydrate(
  app,
  document.getElementById(‘app’)
);

On the server, we will no longer use static methods to extract state. react-side-effect exposed a .rewind() method, which Helmet used when calling Helmet.renderStatic(). Instead, we are going to pass a context prop to HelmetProvider, which will hold our state specific to each request.

import React from 'react';
import { renderToString } from 'react-dom/server';
import { Helmet, HelmetProvider } from 'react-helmet-async';

const helmetContext = {};

const app = (
  <HelmetProvider context={helmetContext}>
    <App>
      <Helmet>
        <title>Hello World</title>
        <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.tacobell.com/" />
      </Helmet>
      <h1>Hello World</h1>
    </App>
  </HelmetProvider>
);

const html = renderToString(app);

const { helmet } = helmetContext;

// helmet.title.toString() etc…

Streams

This package only works with streaming if your <head> data is output outside of renderToNodeStream(). This is possible if your data hydration method already parses your React tree. Example:

import through from 'through';
import { renderToNodeStream } from 'react-dom/server';
import { getDataFromTree } from 'react-apollo';
import { Helmet, HelmetProvider } from 'react-helmet-async';
import template from 'server/template';

const helmetContext = {};

const app = (
  <HelmetProvider context={helmetContext}>
    <App>
      <Helmet>
        <title>Hello World</title>
        <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.tacobell.com/" />
      </Helmet>
      <h1>Hello World</h1>
    </App>
  </HelmetProvider>
);

await getDataFromTree(app);

const [header, footer] = template({
  helmet: helmetContext.helmet,
});

res.status(200);
res.write(header);
renderToNodeStream(app)
  .pipe(
    through(
      function write(data) {
        this.queue(data);
      },
      function end() {
        this.queue(footer);
        this.queue(null);
      }
    )
  )
  .pipe(res);

Usage in Jest

While testing in using jest, if there is a need to emulate SSR, the following string is required to have the test behave the way they are expected to.

import { HelmetProvider } from 'react-helmet-async';

HelmetProvider.canUseDOM = false;

Prioritizing tags for SEO

It is understood that in some cases for SEO, certain tags should appear earlier in the HEAD. Using the prioritizeSeoTags flag on any <Helmet> component allows the server render of react-helmet-async to expose a method for prioritizing relevant SEO tags.

In the component:

<Helmet prioritizeSeoTags>
  <title>A fancy webpage</title>
  <link rel="notImportant" href="https://www.chipotle.com" />
  <meta name="whatever" value="notImportant" />
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.tacobell.com" />
  <meta property="og:title" content="A very important title"/>
</Helmet>

In your server template:

<html>
  <head>
    ${helmet.title.toString()}
    ${helmet.priority.toString()}
    ${helmet.meta.toString()}
    ${helmet.link.toString()}
    ${helmet.script.toString()}
  </head>
  ...
</html>

Will result in:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>A fancy webpage</title>
    <meta property="og:title" content="A very important title"/>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.tacobell.com" />
    <meta name="whatever" value="notImportant" />
    <link rel="notImportant" href="https://www.chipotle.com" />
  </head>
  ...
</html>

A list of prioritized tags and attributes can be found in constants.ts.

Usage without Context

You can optionally use <Helmet> outside a context by manually creating a stateful HelmetData instance, and passing that stateful object to each <Helmet> instance:

import React from 'react';
import { renderToString } from 'react-dom/server';
import { Helmet, HelmetProvider, HelmetData } from 'react-helmet-async';

const helmetData = new HelmetData({});

const app = (
    <App>
      <Helmet helmetData={helmetData}>
        <title>Hello World</title>
        <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.tacobell.com/" />
      </Helmet>
      <h1>Hello World</h1>
    </App>
);

const html = renderToString(app);

const { helmet } = helmetData.context;

License

Licensed under the Apache 2.0 License, Copyright © 2018 Scott Taylor

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