Guide to Conditional Rendering in React

Conditional rendering is a pattern used in React to render a different user interface (UI) based on whether a condition is true or false. This can be as simple as rendering a loading message while waiting for an API to return the data, where the loading message is conditionally rendered based on whether the loading is true or false.

Conditional rendering is quite helpful for showing a personalized UI based on the user's preference, completing a user flow without changing routes, or showing a loading or error state.

In this article, you'll learn about different conditional rendering methods in React applications. You'll use the Clerk client for React to implement a simple dashboard application that conditionally shows the UI based on whether or not the user is signed in.

What's Conditional Rendering in React?

Conditional rendering in React allows you to implement interactive interfaces where you render different UIs based on the application state; these can range from user inputs to user preferences. Let's dig into conditional rendering with some practical use cases.

Showing Personalized UIs

This can be based on your preference as a user and is one of the most common uses you'll see out there. Consider Twitter, for example. You'll only see the Explore section if you're not signed in to Twitter.

When you're signed in, you'll see a personalized feed in sections like Home and Messages.

Completing a User Flow without Changing Routes

This is another use case for conditional rendering. Consider Typeform, for example. The application has multiple pages in a single form, but rather than navigating to a new page for every question, it uses conditional rendering to show only the current question.

Showing a Loading or Error State

This is essential for any application dealing with data loading. Consider Twitter again. See how Home and Trending both show a loader while fetching the feed.

Implementing Conditional Rendering on Authentication

There are a few ways to do conditional rendering in React, and you'll learn about five of them in this article. You can follow the examples by setting up this GitHub repository on your local drive.

"If…else" Statements

You can use the good old if…else conditional statement in JavaScript. You can use the if condition to return a certain JSX if the user is signed in and something else if they aren't.

// AppWithIf.jsx

function App() {
  const isLoggedIn = true
  if (isLoggedIn) {
    return <div className="App">Hello, logged in user!</div>
  } else {
    return <div>User not logged in!</div>
  }
}

export default App

The Conditional (Ternary) Operator

The conditional (ternary) operator can also be used to check whether the user is signed in and return components accordingly.

The ternary operator is a good choice if you've abstracted your JSX into components:

// AppWithTernary.jsx

function SignedIn() {
  return <div className="App">Hello, logged in user!</div>
}

function SignedOut() {
  return <div>User not logged in!</div>
}

function App() {
  const isLoggedIn = true
  return isLoggedIn ? <SignedIn /> : <SignedOut />
}

export default App

The Switch Case

The switch case is useful when you want to conditionally render a component based on a range of choices—for example, if you're conditionally rendering the component based on the user's permission level, as shown below:

// AppWithSwitch.jsx

function Viewer() {
  return <div className="App">Hello, logged in as Viewer!</div>
}

function SignedOut() {
  return <div>User not logged in!</div>
}

function Admin() {
  return <div className="App">Hello, logged in as Admin!</div>
}

function Editor() {
  return <div className="App">Hello, logged in as Editor!</div>
}

function App() {
  const userPermission = 'admin'
  switch (userPermission) {
    case 'viewer':
      return <Viewer />
    case 'editor':
      return <Editor />
    case 'admin':
      return <Admin />
    default:
      return <SignedOut />
  }
}

export default App

Immediately Invoked Function Expressions (IIFE)

An IIFE is a good option if you want to use the conditional statement within the return statement. In this example, the anonymous function below the h1 tag runs on every render and returns the JSX based on the user's login state:

// AppWithIIFE.jsx

function App() {
  const isLoggedIn = true
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Amazing application</h1>
      {(function () {
        if (isLoggedIn) {
          return <div className="App">Hello, logged in user!</div>
        } else {
          return <div>User not logged in!</div>
        }
      })()}
    </div>
  )
}

export default App

Higher-Order Components

A higher-order component (HOC) is a pattern for reusing component logic. You can use a HOC to abstract the authentication logic with multiple components. In this example, the withAuth function is a HOC that takes a component as input and returns another component with conditional rendering based on the user's login state:

// AppWithHOC.jsx

import { useEffect, useState } from 'react'

async function getUserAuth() {
  // get Auth state from somewhere
  return true
}

function withAuth(Component) {
  return function ComponentWithAuth() {
    const [isLoggedIn, setLoggedIn] = useState(true)
    useEffect(() => {
      getUserAuth().then((auth) => setLoggedIn(auth))
    }, [])
    return isLoggedIn ? <Component /> : <div>Please log in to view this component.</div>
  }
}

function Dashboard({}) {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Amazing application</h1>
      <p>Best dashboard</p>
    </div>
  )
}

const DashboardWithAuth = withAuth(Dashboard)

function App() {
  return <DashboardWithAuth />
}

export default App

Conditional Rendering with Clerk

You've now learned about different ways of using conditional rendering for authentication. You can see that dealing with authentication can get very messy: the more auth state you manage, the more complex the conditionals become. What if there was an authentication provider that takes care of all the conditional rendering for you?

Next you'll see how the Clerk frontend client can be used to implement conditional rendering based on the user's authentication state.

Run the following command in your terminal to create a new React project:

npx create-react-app clerk-react-conditionals

Navigate to the newly made project in your terminal by running the following:

cd clerk-react-conditionals

Now install the Clerk React client using the following command:

npm install @clerk/clerk-react

Log in to your Clerk dashboard and copy the frontend API key from the API keys page.

Create the new file .env.local and securely save the frontend API key like so:

REACT_APP_CLERK_FRONTEND_API=<paste-the-key-from-clerk-dashboard>

Note: Don't commit the .env.local file to keep the key safe.

In the App.js file, add the ClerkProvider at the top level in the App component. Pass the ClerkProvider with the frontendApi prop from the environment variables. The ClerkProvider provides the authentication state and methods to all the child components:

import React from 'react'
import {
  ClerkProvider,
  SignedIn,
  SignedOut,
  SignOutButton,
  SignInButton,
  useUser,
} from '@clerk/clerk-react'

const frontendApi = process.env.REACT_APP_CLERK_FRONTEND_API

function App() {
  return (
    <ClerkProvider frontendApi={frontendApi}>
      <SignedIn>
        <p style={{ padding: 20 }}>Welcome to the amazing dashboard!</p>
      </SignedIn>
      <SignedOut>
        <p style={{ padding: 20 }}>You must be signed in to use the dashboard.</p>
      </SignedOut>
    </ClerkProvider>
  )
}

The SignedIn and SignedOut components from Clerk conditionally render the children. The SignedIn component renders children if the user is signed in, and the SignedOut component renders children if they're not. This example renders different messages, but you can use any other component according to your application.

Run npm start in your terminal to start the application and open http://localhost:3000 in a web browser. You should see the following message.

Using the React Hook

The dashboard conditionally renders different messages based on a user's sign-in state, but the user still needs the option to sign in. As a good practice, you can put the Sign in and Sign out buttons at the top NavBar component:

import React from 'react'
import {
  ClerkProvider,
  SignedIn,
  SignedOut,
  SignOutButton,
  SignInButton,
  useUser,
} from '@clerk/clerk-react'

function NavBar() {
  const { user, isSignedIn } = useUser()
  return (
    <nav
      style={{
        display: 'flex',
        justifyContent: 'space-between',
        alignItems: 'center',
        padding: '10px 20px',
        backgroundColor: 'peachpuff',
      }}
    >
      <h2>Amazing dashboard</h2>
      {isSignedIn ? (
        <div style={{ display: 'flex', alignItems: 'center' }}>
          <p style={{ marginRight: 10 }}>Hello, {user.firstName}!</p>
          <SignOutButton />
        </div>
      ) : (
        <SignInButton />
      )}
    </nav>
  )
}

The NavBar component uses the useUser hook from Clerk to get the user object and isSignedIn Boolean flag. The component renders a navbar with an h2 "Amazing dashboard" and, depending on the value of isSignedIn, displays either a greeting with the user's first name and a SignOutButton component or a SignInButton component.

Now use the NavBar component in the App. The final application code should look as shown below:

import React from 'react'
import {
  ClerkProvider,
  SignedIn,
  SignedOut,
  SignOutButton,
  SignInButton,
  useUser,
} from '@clerk/clerk-react'

const frontendApi = process.env.REACT_APP_CLERK_FRONTEND_API

function App() {
  return (
    <ClerkProvider frontendApi={frontendApi}>
      <NavBar />
      <SignedIn>
        <p style={{ padding: 20 }}>Welcome to the amazing dashboard!</p>
      </SignedIn>
      <SignedOut>
        <p style={{ padding: 20 }}>You must be signed in to use the dashboard.</p>
      </SignedOut>
    </ClerkProvider>
  )
}

function NavBar() {
  const { user, isSignedIn } = useUser()
  return (
    <nav
      style={{
        display: 'flex',
        justifyContent: 'space-between',
        alignItems: 'center',
        padding: '10px 20px',
        backgroundColor: 'peachpuff',
      }}
    >
      <h2>Amazing dashboard</h2>
      {isSignedIn ? (
        <div style={{ display: 'flex', alignItems: 'center' }}>
          <p style={{ marginRight: 10 }}>Hello, {user.firstName}!</p>
          <SignOutButton />
        </div>
      ) : (
        <SignInButton />
      )}
    </nav>
  )
}

export default App

Your secured dashboard application can be seen in action below.

Conclusion

After completing this tutorial, you'll have successfully built a secured dashboard application that conditionally renders specific UIs according to the user's sign-in state. While doing so, you learned about different ways of conditionally rendering the UI in React. You also discovered various components and hooks that Clerk provides to render UIs conditionally depending on the user's authentication status.

Clerk is a complete user management solution with pre-built components, hooks, and even a user interface for user profile management. Clerk is an easy-to-integrate solution for your React applications with first-class support for all modern frameworks such as Next.js, Remix, and RedwoodJS. Give Clerk a try for free to explore a complete list of its features.