Integrate CKEditor 5 with Next.js using CDN

Next.js is a React meta-framework that helps create full-stack web applications. It offers different rendering strategies like server-side rendering (SSR), client-side rendering (CSR), or static site generation (SSG). Additionally, it provides file-based routing, automatic code splitting, and other handy features out of the box.

Next.js 13 introduced a new App Router as an alternative to the previous Pages Router. App Router supports server components and is more server-centric than Pages Router, which is client-side oriented.

CKEditor 5 does not support server-side rendering yet, but you can integrate it with the Next.js framework. In this guide, you will add the editor to a Next.js project using both routing paradigms. For this purpose, you will need Next.js CLI, and the official CKEditor 5 React component.

# Setting up the project

This guide assumes you already have a Next project. To create such a project, you can use CLI like create-next-app. Refer to the Next.js documentation to learn more.

# Using from CDN

Next.js is based on React, so we need to install the CKEditor 5 WYSIWYG editor component for React:

npm install @ckeditor/ckeditor5-react

You will use the installed dependency in a React component. Create a new component in the components directory, for example, components/custom-editor.js. Inside the component file, import all necessary dependencies. Then, create a functional component that returns the CKEditor 5 React component. The example below shows how to use the component with both open-source and premium plugins.

The App Router, by default, uses server components. It means you need to mark a component as client-side explicitly. You can achieve that by using the 'use client' directive at the top of the file, above your imports. You do not need the directive if you use the Pages Router.

In the below example, the useCKEditorCloud hook is used to load the editor code and plugins from CDN. To use premium plugins, set the premium property to true and provide your license key in the configuration. For more information about the useCKEditorCloud helper, see the Loading CDN resources guide.

// components/custom-editor.js
'use client' // only in App Router

import React from 'react';
import { CKEditor, useCKEditorCloud } from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-react';

const CustomEditor = () => {
    const cloud = useCKEditorCloud( {
        version: '44.1.0',
        premium: true
    } );

    if ( cloud.status === 'error' ) {
        return <div>Error!</div>;
    }

    if ( cloud.status === 'loading' ) {
        return <div>Loading...</div>;
    }

    const {
        ClassicEditor,
        Essentials,
        Paragraph,
        Bold,
        Italic
    } = cloud.CKEditor;

    const { FormatPainter } = cloud.CKEditorPremiumFeatures;

    return (
        <CKEditor
            editor={ ClassicEditor }
            data={ '<p>Hello world!</p>' }
            config={ {
                licenseKey: '<YOUR_LICENSE_KEY>',
                plugins: [ Essentials, Paragraph, Bold, Italic, FormatPainter ],
                toolbar: [ 'undo', 'redo', '|', 'bold', 'italic', '|', 'formatPainter' ]
            } }
        />
    );
};

export default CustomEditor;

The CustomEditor component is ready to be used inside a page. The page’s directory will differ depending on the selected routing strategy.

CKEditor 5 is a client-side text editor and relies on the browser APIs, so you need to disable server-side rendering for our custom component. You can lazily load the component using the dynamic() function built into Next.js.

// app/page.js (App Router)
// pages/index.js (Pages Router)

import dynamic from 'next/dynamic';

const CustomEditor = dynamic( () => import( '@/components/custom-editor' ), { ssr: false } );

function Home() {
  return (
    <CustomEditor />
  );
}

export default Home;

You can run your project now. If you chose create-next-app, type npm run dev to see your application in the browser.

Also, pay attention to the import path – this guide uses the default import alias (@). If you did not configure it, change the path