Create a Next.js app with Firebase Auth and Material UI

About this guide

This development guide walks you through everything you need to do to build a high-quality Next.js app integrated with Firebase Auth and Material UI. Check out the tasks below to get started. To save time, you can also use our boilerplate, which gives you a complete React codebase with all of these tasks done for you. Okay, let's dive in!

Tasks

• Setup your Next.js appGet the code

  Create a Next.js app using npx create-next-app and then run your project locally with the npm run dev command.

• Create a Firebase AuthProvider and useAuth hookGet the code

  Create an AuthProvider component that fetches the current user from Firebase Auth, subscribes to changes, stores the user in state, and then makes all this data available to child components using Context.Provider. Make sure to update your Next.js App component so that AuthProvider wraps all your pages. You'll then create a useAuth hook that reads the user with useContext and returns its value. This will enable any component to call useAuthto get the current user and re-render when it changes.

• ‍Protect pages with a Firebase requireAuth HOCGet the code

  Create a requireAuth higher order component for pages that should only be viewable by authenticated users. It should call your useAuth hook internally to get the current user, show a loading indicator while waiting on the response, and then either render the page or redirect to /signin depending on whether the user is authenticated. For the loading indicator you might try a CircularProgress component centered on the page.

• ‍Create a custom Firebase email action handlerGet the code

  Some Firebase actions, such as password resetting and email verification, will take the user through an email flow and then have them complete the process on a page hosted by Firebase. For a better experience, you can handle this within your own app. You ll need to create a custom Firebase email action route that reads the mode and oobCode params passed by Firebase and then display the appropriate UI (such as a form for selecting a new password). Make sure to handle success/error states with an Alert component.

• Build your authentication UIGet the code

  Create an authentication UI using Material UI components and Firebase Auth functions. You'll want routes for user sign-up, sign-in, forgot password, and change password. Make sure you properly validate inputs and display any errors returned by Firebase Auth. You may also want to use a library, such as React Hook Form, for managing form state.

• Link user to analytics sessionGet the code

  You can connect Google Analytics sessions to the current authenticated user with the User ID feature. This allows you to see what your users are doing across sessions and devices. You'll need to update your useAuth hook to set the user_id property whenever the user changes.

• Server render Material UI styles with Next.jsGet the code

  You'll need to server-render your Material UI styles to avoid a flash of unstyled content before your client-side javascript loads. To do this you'll need to update your Next.js Document component to extract component styles. After mount you'll then remove the server stylesheet so that the client can take over with style management.

• Ensure Material UI link components hook into Next.js routingGet the code

  Make all Material UI link components hook into Next.js routing by wrapping them with the Link component from next/link and setting passHref to true.

• Create a persistent layoutGet the code

  Add any components that you'd like displayed across all pages (such asNavbar and Footer) to your Next.js App component. If you need multiple persistent layouts you can instead have each page define its own layout. In that case, create multiple layout components (such as LandingPageLayout and AdminLayout) and wrap the contents of each page.

• Add a Material UI ThemeProviderGet the code

  Add the Material UI ThemeProvider component so that you customize theme values. If your entire app uses the same theme (as opposed to different nested themes), then the best way to do this is update your Next.js App component so that ThemeProviderwraps all your pages.

• Add dark mode supportGet the code

  To support dark mode you'll need to define a light and dark Material UI theme object, read the user's preference from local storage on mount, fall back to their browser default using prefers-color-scheme, and pass the correct theme object to ThemeProvider. You'll also want to create a useDarkMode React hook that any component can call to get/toggle the user's preference. Be sure to check out our example Material UI components with dark mode toggle.

• ‍Finish your app UI with Material UIGet the code

  Build out the rest of your UI using Material UI components and composing them into high-level page sections, such as HeroSection and AccountSettings. Use Material UI's CSS-in-JS solution for styling your components and overriding default component styles. You should find our library of pre-built Material UI components to be helpful.

Get the code

You can get the code for this guide with our Next.js, Firebase Auth, and Material UI Boilerplate. You'll get a complete Next.js codebase with Firebase Auth and Material UI integration, all the tasks listed above done for you, and a responsive multi-page template. It should save you about two weeks of development time.

Get the boilerplate