gl-react is a React library for writing and composing WebGL shaders as reusable components.
The library solves the problem of managing complex WebGL effects by bringing React's component model to shader programming. Instead of writing imperative WebGL code, developers describe shader effects declaratively as React components that can be composed together. The approach leverages React's virtual DOM paradigm and lifecycle methods to handle partial GL re-rendering, so only component updates trigger redraws. Each component node maintains its own framebuffer state that updates when the component changes.
The tool suits developers building interactive graphics applications who want to write shaders once and reuse them across different platforms. gl-react is universal and requires pairing with a platform-specific implementation: gl-react-dom for web browsers, gl-react-native or gl-react-expo for iOS and Android via React Native, or gl-react-headless for Node.js server-side rendering. The library handles uniform bindings from JavaScript to GLSL types and includes an extensible texture loader supporting images, videos, and canvas elements. React DevTools integration allows inspection and debugging of the component stack.
Development activity shows consistent maintenance with regular updates to the codebase. The project maintains multiple platform implementations as separate packages within a monorepo structure, indicating active support across different environments. Documentation includes a cookbook of examples runnable locally and references to shader learning resources, suggesting ongoing investment in developer experience.
