Integrate Lighthouse Tool in React Project

INTEGRATE LIGHTHOUSE TOOL IN REACT PROJECT

React JS, Blog / By / July 25, 2024

Integrate Lighthouse Tool in React Project to improve the performance

Nowadays, we are facing many complaints about web application performance. Lighthouse is a tool that can help the developer in identifying the root cause of their project performance issue. Lighthouse can become a game changer for improving performance. Here, we will explain to you the process of setting up and how to use the Lighthouse effectively to improve your web application performance.

Introduction

What is Lighthouse Tool ?

Lighthouse is an open-source node package/chrome extension that can help to fetch the performance metrics of your application. It provides audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, SEO, and more. We can get more detailed insights about our site’s performance by running Lighthouse and it also provides recommendations for improvements.

Why we should use Lighthouse in our React Project?

React is a library to build user interfaces. sometimes we fail to follow the proper development guidelines due to some tight timeline or if we are beginners in technology and that can lead to performance issues if not managed correctly. We can easily identify these issues early by integrating Lighthouse into React project and also it provides suggestions to optimize and enhance the user experience effectively.

Getting Started with Lighthouse

Overview of Lighthouse Features

Lighthouse offers a comprehensive suite of features, including:

  • Performance audits
  • Accessibility checks
  • Best practices validation
  • SEO analysis
  • Progressive Web App (PWA) capabilities

What are the benefits of Performance Auditing

We can audit our application performance with Lighthouse which will ensure that our application is loading quickly, interactive, and provides a good user experience. This would be very beneficial to increase user retention, higher engagement, and improve search engine rankings of our web application.

Setting Up Your React Project

Prerequisites – Integrate Lighthouse Tool in React Project

Before integrating Lighthouse, ensure you have the following installed:

  • Node.js
  • npm or Yarn
  • A React project (create one using create-react-app if you don’t have one)

Creating a New React Project

To create a new React project, run:

npx create-react-app my-react-app cd my-react-app

Installing Lighthouse – Integrate Lighthouse Tool in React Project

Using Lighthouse CLI

Lighthouse can be installed globally via npm:

npm install -g lighthouse

Installing Lighthouse as a Node Module

Alternatively, you can add Lighthouse as a dependency in your project:

npm install --save-dev lighthouse

Running Lighthouse Audits

Using the Command Line Interface

To run a Lighthouse audit, use the following command:

lighthouse https://your-react-app-url.com

Integrating with npm Scripts

Add a script to your package.json to simplify running Lighthouse:

 "scripts": {
    "lighthouse": "lighthouse --chrome-flags='--headless' https://localhost:3000 --output html --output-path ./lighthouse-audit-reports.html"
  },
script to Integrate Lighthouse Tool in React Project

Run the script with:

npm run lighthouse

Interpreting Lighthouse Reports

Understanding the Performance Score

Lighthouse report provides performance score between 0 and 100 and where a bigger number indicates that our application’s performance is good. This score number is calculated based on varios metrics like FCP, TTI and LCP etc.

Detailed Metrics Explained

Key metrics include:

  • First Contentful Paint (FCP): It indicates how much time your application is taking to render the first piece of content on UI.
  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): It indicates how much time your application is taking to render the largest piece of content.
  • Total Blocking Time (TBT): Total time that a page is blocked from responding to user input.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): it is a measure of UI visual stability.

Improving Performance Based on Lighthouse Reports

Optimizing Bundle Size

Definitly, this is first thing that we should reduce bundle size to to improve website loading times.

Code Splitting and Lazy Loading

We should break our code into smaller component and that can be configured to load on demand rather than all at once.React offers its API like React.lazy and Suspense that can help to achieve this.

Minimizing Render Blocking Resources

It ensure that your critical resources load first by deferring non-essential scripts and styles.

Leveraging Browser Caching

Use browser caching to store static assets locally, reducing the need to fetch them on subsequent visits.

Advanced Lighthouse Configuration

Customizing Lighthouse Configurations

You can create custom Lighthouse configurations to focus on specific aspects of performance:

{ "extends": "lighthouse:default", "settings": { "onlyCategories": ["performance"] } }

Using Lighthouse in Continuous Integration (CI)

Integrate Lighthouse with your CI tools (like GitHub Actions, Travis CI) to run audits on every build. This ensures that performance issues are caught early.

Automating Performance Audits – Integrate Lighthouse Tool in React Project

Scheduling Regular Audits

Use cron jobs or CI tools to schedule Lighthouse audits at regular intervals.

Integrating with CI/CD Pipelines

Add Lighthouse audits to your CI/CD pipelines to ensure every deployment meets your performance standards.

Case Study: Real-World Application

Example of Performance Improvements

A hypothetical React application improved its Lighthouse performance score from 60 to 90 by:

  • Implementing code splitting
  • Optimizing images
  • Deferring non-critical resources

Common Challenges and Troubleshooting while integrating it with CI/CD

Dealing with Inconsistent Results

Lighthouse results can vary due to network conditions and device performance. Use emulated environments for consistent results.

Debugging Performance Issues

We can easily Identify and resolve issues by focusing on specific metrics suggested in the Lighthouse report.

Best Practices for Maintaining Performance

Regular Monitoring and Audits

Continuously monitor your application’s performance and run audits regularly to catch issues early.

Keeping Dependencies Up to Date

Regularly update your dependencies to benefit from performance improvements and security patches.

Additional Tools and Resources

Complementary Performance Tools

Consider using additional tools like WebPageTest, GTmetrix, and Google PageSpeed Insights for comprehensive performance analysis.

Learning Resources and Documentation

Leverage official documentation, tutorials, and community forums to stay updated with best practices and new features.

Conclusion

Integrate Lighthouse Tool in React Project is an effective way to ensure optimal performance. Regular audits, coupled with actionable insights, help you build a faster, more efficient web application. Start using Lighthouse today and take your React project’s performance to the next level.

Useful links:

Lighthouse npm – https://www.npmjs.com/package/lighthouse
React Js Job Support – https://tekody.com/services/react-js-job-support/

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