How to Integrate Clickvote Components into a React App

Clickvote provides embeddable Like, Upvote, and Review components that you can drop into a React app to add voting and feedback features to any context. The integration path is short: install the @clickvote/react package, wrap your component tree in ClickVoteProvider, and render a ClickVoteComponent with an id (the context) and a voteTo (the target being voted on). You can then style it with a preset like LikeStyle or supply your own render function. This guide covers the setup steps, what each prop does, and where people typically get stuck.

Prerequisites

Before you start, confirm you have:

• A React project (the package is imported as @clickvote/react).
• A Clickvote backend to talk to. The docs describe two options: a self-hosted instance run locally with docker-compose, or the cloud managed service. You need one of these before votes will persist anywhere.
• A decision on how you want Clickvote to send data back to your system. The site states that once likes are received, the information is forwarded to your system either via API calls or by listening to Kafka topics.

Step 1: Install the package

Add the React package to your project:

npm install @clickvote/react

The import path used in the official example is @clickvote/react, so keep that exact scope when importing.

Step 2: Wrap your app in ClickVoteProvider

ClickVoteProvider sets up the context that the voting components rely on. Place it high enough in the tree that every ClickVoteComponent sits inside it.

import { ClickVoteProvider } from '@clickvote/react';

export const App = () => {
  return (
    <ClickVoteProvider>
      {/* your app */}
    </ClickVoteProvider>
  );
};

If you render a ClickVoteComponent outside this provider, it has no context to attach to — that's the most common cause of a component that renders but never registers a vote.

Step 3: Render a ClickVoteComponent

The component takes two props in the official example:

• id — the context the vote belongs to (for example, a page, post, or product identifier).
• voteTo — the ID of the specific target being voted on.

import { ClickVoteProvider, ClickVoteComponent, LikeStyle } from '@clickvote/react';

const CONTEXT = 'my-page';
const ID = 'item-123';

export const LikeExample = () => {
  return (
    <ClickVoteProvider>
      <ClickVoteComponent id={CONTEXT} voteTo={ID}>
        {(props) => <LikeStyle {...props} />}
      </ClickVoteComponent>
    </ClickVoteProvider>
  );
};

Note the render-prop pattern: ClickVoteComponent passes props to a function, and you decide what to render with them. LikeStyle is one of the preset styles you can spread those props into.

Step 4: Choose a style or build your own

The example uses LikeStyle, but the same render-prop slot accepts any component. Because props carries the state and handlers, you can:

• Use a preset (LikeStyle, and the other Like / Upvote / Review styles referenced on the site).
• Write a custom component that consumes props and renders your own markup.

This is also where the framework choice matters: Clickvote ships components for React, Vue, Angular, and Svelte, so the surrounding syntax differs but the id / voteTo concept carries across.

Step 5: Verify it works

After wiring it up:

1. Render the component and confirm it appears in the UI.
2. Cast a vote and check that it registers.
3. Confirm the vote reaches your system through whichever channel you configured (API call or Kafka topic).
4. Use the monitoring view described on the site to look at the time-series of your likes and confirm the event landed.

If the vote shows locally but never arrives in your system, the problem is almost always the backend connection (self-hosted instance not running, or the API/Kafka output not configured) rather than the React code.

What you get beyond the component

Clickvote isn't only the embed. The site highlights:

• Monitoring and testing — see what members like and review the time-series of likes to decide where to focus.
• Scale — the system is described as handling an unlimited amount of likes and scaling to match traffic.
• Output flexibility — forward votes to your system via API calls or Kafka topics.
• Open source — source code is public, with a community of 3,000+ developers contributing.

Common sticking points

Choosing self-hosted vs cloud

The site presents both without stating prices, so treat the choice on operational grounds: self-hosted runs locally with docker-compose and keeps everything in your environment; cloud is described as a managed service you can get started with. If you need to control the infrastructure or already run Docker, start self-hosted. If you want to skip setup, start with the cloud option.