Nicolás Gómez

Posted on Sep 3, 2020 • Originally published at codewithnico.com on May 10, 2020

List of Open Source React projects on GitHub to learn from

#react

As you grow your knowledge in React.js, you will notice that there are many sources with simple code examples but only a few of advanced stuff. And many of them have "outdated code" (no hooks, class components everywhere, etc).

What if you want to know how to structure a medium to large codebase? Or if you want to know if you are doing everything fine?

One way to improve your skills is to study what other devs are doing. How they approach their projects can teach you lessons that maybe will take you weeks to learn.

That's why I made this list of open-source React.js applications you can learn from. All uses modern features such hooks, context and many uses redux-toolkit. So, no matter if you already have hit a plateau as seasoned developer or if you're just starting, take a look!

1) Take Note – Live | Repo

Take Note is an open-source project to take notes, known as The Note Taking App for Developers

It's a simple plain-text take note app with markdown support. Without all the fancy stuff that we don't need :)

The code seems to be good organized:

It uses React hooks (yay!) and redux-toolkit =) (see the slices folder).

auth.ts, authentication slice using redux toolkit

2) Cloud Music - Repo

This is a clone of NetEase, a cloud music streaming service. The README is in Chinese but the code is in plain English.

This project uses redux (without redux-toolkit) and hooks. What I find interesting in this project is the code structure:

At first, it seems pretty standard but after reviewing the reducer (store/reducer.js) I noticed that they are "grouping" (inside application folder) some components and styles alongside the redux logic:

3) Todoist clone - Repo

Karl Hadwen did this Todoist clone, and he even has a video tutorial on Youtube.

For the "backend", he used Firebaseinstead of building an API from scratch. He used context and didn't use redux (yes, you don't always need to use redux).

4) Mortgage – Live | Repo

Mortgage is a mortgage overpayment calculator!

It uses D3 to draw the chart and hooks! It is a small app but it is a good start to learn how to use hooks in calculator-like applications.

5) Tomato Work – Live | Repo

Tomato-work is a personal affairs management system written in React using hooks and redux:

Live demo, took from README — Live demo from README

For the UI, it uses Antd, which is pretty awesome BTW. The code structure is standard:

What I find interesting is that it has a services folder (remind me of angular) where each file is an abstraction to make API calls. So instead of calling axios directly in the component, he uses a service function instead.

6) Write with me – Live | Repo

Write with me is a real-time collaborative markdown editor written in React with hooks and it uses AWS Amplify

As you can see, this is a small project:

So, the code structure is not organized using different folders. All the state management is done using useReducer hooks.

There is a graphql folder because Amplify works with graphql

7) JIRA Clone – Live | Repo

This is a simplified JIRA Clone, looks awesome!

Analyzing the code structure, you can see it uses cypress and jest for testing:

As the author says, it is a good example of a modern real-world React codebase. There are the features (from README):

List of features — The project features from README

8) Spectrum – Live | Repo

Spectrum is a platform that allows you to create and participate in awesome communities.

I have seen many people recommending this repository. And there is a good reason for this: the repository is their entire product!

"That being said, this codebase isn't your typical open source project because it's not a library or package with a limited scope—it's our entire product."

In my opinion, this is one of the best open source full-stack react projects that shows off how to properly structure a large codebase