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 changes to 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 improving SEO, social sharing, and overall user experience. Each library offers unique features and approaches to handling document head updates, catering to different use cases and developer preferences.

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react-helmet-async2,186,8502,21586.3 kB78a year agoApache-2.0
react-helmet2,164,43317,479-2235 years agoMIT
react-document-title72,6281,863-218 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-helmet-async vs react-helmet vs react-document-title

SEO Optimization

  • react-helmet-async:

    React-helmet-async builds upon the capabilities of react-helmet, adding support for asynchronous updates, which is crucial for SSR. This ensures that the document head is populated correctly before the content is sent to the client, enhancing SEO.

  • react-helmet:

    React-helmet excels in SEO optimization by enabling developers to manage not only the document title but also meta tags, link tags, and script tags. This comprehensive control allows for better search engine indexing and social media sharing.

  • react-document-title:

    This package allows for the dynamic setting of the document title, which is a fundamental aspect of SEO. However, it does not support meta tags or other head elements, limiting its SEO capabilities.

Asynchronous Support

  • react-helmet-async:

    React-helmet-async is specifically designed for asynchronous operations, allowing for head updates to be handled seamlessly in SSR environments, ensuring that the document head is correctly populated.

  • react-helmet:

    React-helmet does not natively support asynchronous updates, which can lead to issues in SSR scenarios where head elements need to be updated before rendering.

  • react-document-title:

    This package does not support asynchronous updates, making it less suitable for applications that require dynamic head changes based on asynchronous data fetching.

Ease of Use

  • react-helmet-async:

    React-helmet-async maintains a similar API to react-helmet but adds complexity due to its asynchronous capabilities. It may require a deeper understanding of React's context API for optimal use.

  • react-helmet:

    React-helmet offers a slightly more complex API due to its extensive features, but it remains user-friendly for those familiar with React. It allows for a declarative approach to managing the document head.

  • react-document-title:

    This library is very easy to use, requiring minimal setup and providing a straightforward API for managing the document title. It is perfect for developers looking for simplicity.

Community and Maintenance

  • react-helmet-async:

    React-helmet-async is gaining popularity, especially among developers using SSR. It benefits from the community around react-helmet while focusing on asynchronous capabilities.

  • react-helmet:

    React-helmet has a larger community and is widely used, ensuring better support, more frequent updates, and a wealth of resources and documentation available for developers.

  • react-document-title:

    This package has a smaller community and less frequent updates compared to the others, which may impact long-term support and feature enhancements.

Performance

  • react-helmet-async:

    React-helmet-async is optimized for performance in SSR scenarios, ensuring that head updates do not block rendering and that the document head is populated efficiently.

  • react-helmet:

    While react-helmet is efficient, it can introduce some overhead due to its comprehensive feature set. However, this is often negligible for most applications.

  • react-document-title:

    Performance is generally good for this lightweight library, as it only manages the document title without additional overhead from meta tags or other elements.

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

    Opt for react-helmet-async when working with server-side rendering (SSR) or when you need to manage head elements asynchronously. This library is designed to handle head updates in a way that is compatible with SSR, ensuring that the document head is correctly populated before the page is rendered.

  • react-helmet:

    Select react-helmet if you need a comprehensive solution for managing the document head, including meta tags, title, and other elements. It provides a declarative API and is well-suited for larger applications that require extensive SEO features and customization.

  • react-document-title:

    Choose react-document-title for simple projects where you only need to manage the document title without complex meta tags or SEO considerations. It is lightweight and straightforward, making it ideal for small applications.

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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