Not interested in reinventing the wheel? Neither am I. Here’s a short list of awesome boilerplates – sometimes known as starter kits or seeds – for getting React applications off the ground in a hurry. These application templates were not taken from any list, however awesome that list might be. Rather, they’ve gained enough mindshare to find me outside The Stream1. They’re open source and waiting for you to clone, fork and build upon for your next React project.
Contributions via comments welcome. The best React and React Native Boilerplates will be moved into the article body and the nofollow removed.
React
Application boilerplates for creating React apps.
react-production-starter
React Redux boilerplate with isomorphic rendering, async react-router routes, async redux reducers, async data fetching, and code-splitting. Also _includes a Dockerfile__ to get you up-and-running in a flash.
scalable-react-boilerplate
Finally, a simple starter kit for scalable apps. Replete with a Slush generator (remember Yeoman? me either) and code generators, it’s set-up for use of CSS modules with SASS, and includes Airbnb linters and Mocha for testing.
express-react-redux-starter
I wanted to spike on a simple game of 5x5 Tic-Tac-Toe recently and was able to use this kit to build out the game board using functional stateless components, and without having to yank out tons of boilerplate. It had just the things I needed to start building, and nothing more.
simple-static-react-aframe
It’s refreshing to see a new use case for a boilerplate. This boilerplate gets you set-up to build a VR website with React and Aframe. Check out the mobile demo and start building the next Pokémon Go.
react-redux-universal-hot-example
A starter boilerplate for a universal webapp using express, react, redux, webpack, and react-transform
react-starter-kit
Everything you need to build a front-end for a SEO-friendly React website. Supports text-only browsing and focuses heavily on Node.js and the surrounding ecosystem of NPM libraries. For an example isomporhpic application I’ve built using this kit check out lumpenradio-com or my Isomporhpic Rendering with React talk.
react-redux-starter-kit
By former colleague (and one hell of a coder) this kit is designed to get you up and running with a bunch of awesome new front-end technologies. It’s a bit heavy for those new to React, and doesn’t have the benefits of Isomorphic rendering, but there’s plenty of info to take away from studying it.
react-boilerplate
From the documentation, “A highly scalable, offline-first foundation with the best developer experience and a focus on performance and best practices.” I haven’t personally tried this seed yet but it’s got enough umph behind it to make it worth bringing to your attention.
react-slingshot
React Slingshot is a comprehensive starter kit for rapid application development using React. Includes React + Redux starter kit with Babel, hot reloading, testing, linting and a working example app, all built in.
Este
A React/Flux dev stack and starter kit for Universal JavaScript apps. Renders pages SPA style (using script tags) and, therefore, is not as SEO friendly as React Starter Kit.
re-base
Inspired by Relay, combines the benefits of React and Firebase by allowing each component to specify its own data dependency. Forget about your data persistence and focus on what really matters, your application’s state.
electron-react-boilerplate
Electron application boilerplate based on react, react-router, webpack, react-hot-loader for rapid application development
relay-starter-kit
Barebones starting point for a Relay application. Uses the Babel Relay Plug-in and linked to from the official Relay documentation so it’s likely to gain traction as a starting point for new apps.
jspm-react
Configured starter repo to build web apps with React and ES6 modules using JSPM. Not actively maintained, though the author is still accepting pull requests.
React Native
Application boilerplates for creating React Native applications.
ignite
The unfair starting CLI, Generator, and more for React Native. I looked over this and, though I haven’t used it yet for a project, it has one of my favorite developer affordances: Generators. It also takes a different approach from most boilerplates in that you do not have to fork the repo. Just generate it from the base! Includes redux sagas and some config to get going with Fastlane for CI.
pepperoni
An well-built open source starter for React Native iOS and Android projects jam packed with lots of tasty ingredients. I created a small app with this and, while the linting rules are a little persnickety for my taste (plus semicolons, who needs them?) the overall developer experience was good.
snowflake
A React-Native starter kit using Redux, Parse.com, Jest given to us by the affable Barton Hammond. Includes all sorts of goodies, including Parse, which is planned to be replaced with Serverless, which uses AWS Lambdas and helps get you in the public cloud. Oh là là!
react-native-webpack-starter-kit
Build your React Native app with Webpack and Babel.
react-native-es6-babel
Configuration to build React Native apps with ES6 using webpack and Babel
react-native-es6-reflux
Boilerplate for iOS app development with React Native, ES6 and Reflux
react-native-tabbed
An unassumingly but sweet base for a native app with tabbed navigation and modal window support. Builds on the work of react-native-navbar. See it in use with React Native Icons in my Smartphone Symphony app.
“The Stream” is a kind of slot machine used to hijack your mind. ↩