Chapter 109 · Feature Flags Next.js
Subchapter 109.3
references/next-js.mdMarkdown13 KBView on GitHub
PostHog makes it easy to get data about traffic and usage of your Next.js app. Integrating PostHog into your site enables analytics about user behavior, custom events capture, session recordings, feature flags, and more.
This guide walks you through integrating PostHog into your Next.js app using the React (opens in a new tab) and the Node.js (opens in a new tab) SDKs.
You can see a working example of this integration in our Next.js demo app (opens in a new tab).
Next.js has both client and server-side rendering, as well as pages and app routers. We’ll cover all of these options in this guide.
Try
@posthog/next(pre-release): A simplified Next.js integration with synchronized client/server identity, server-side flag bootstrapping, and a built-in API proxy. Read the setup guide → (opens in a new tab)
To follow this guide along, you need:
Install PostHog for Next.js in seconds with our wizard by running this prompt with LLM coding agents (opens in a new tab) like Cursor and Bolt, or by running it in your terminal.
npx @posthog/wizard@latest
Or, to integrate manually, continue with the rest of this guide.
Install posthog-js using your package manager:
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npm install --save posthog-jsyarn add posthog-jspnpm add posthog-jsbun add posthog-jsAdd your environment variables to your .env.local file and to your hosting provider (e.g. Vercel, Netlify, AWS). You can find your project token in your project settings (opens in a new tab).
.env.local
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NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_TOKEN=<ph_project_token>
NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST=https://us.i.posthog.comThese values need to start with NEXT_PUBLIC_ to be accessible on the client-side.
Next.js provides the instrumentation-client.ts|js (opens in a new tab) file for client-side setup. Add it to the root of your Next.js app (for both app and pages router) and initialize PostHog in it like this:
PostHog AI
import posthog from 'posthog-js'
posthog.init(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_TOKEN, {
api_host: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST,
defaults: '2026-01-30'
});import posthog from 'posthog-js'
posthog.init(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_TOKEN!, {
api_host: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST,
defaults: '2026-01-30'
});Bootstrapping with instrumentation-client
When using instrumentation-client, the values you pass to posthog.init remain fixed for the entire session. This means bootstrapping only works if you evaluate flags before your app renders (for example, on the server).
If you need flag values after the app has rendered, you’ll want to:
Both approaches avoid flicker and give you the same outcome as bootstrapping, as long as you use the same distinct_id across client and server.
See the bootstrapping guide (opens in a new tab) for more information.
Identifying users is required. Call
posthog.identify('your-user-id')after login to link events to a known user. This is what connects frontend event captures, session replays (opens in a new tab), LLM traces (opens in a new tab), and error tracking (opens in a new tab) to the same person — and lets backend events link back too.See our guide on identifying users (opens in a new tab) for how to set this up.
Set up a reverse proxy (recommended)
We recommend setting up a reverse proxy (opens in a new tab), so that events are less likely to be intercepted by tracking blockers.
We have our own managed reverse proxy service (opens in a new tab), which is free for all PostHog Cloud users, routes through our infrastructure, and makes setting up your proxy easy.
If you don’t want to use our managed service then there are several other options for creating a reverse proxy, including using Cloudflare (opens in a new tab), AWS Cloudfront (opens in a new tab), and Vercel (opens in a new tab).
Grouping products in one project (recommended)
If you have multiple customer-facing products (e.g. a marketing website + mobile app + web app), it’s best to install PostHog on them all and group them in one project (opens in a new tab).
This makes it possible to track users across their entire journey (e.g. from visiting your marketing website to signing up for your product), or how they use your product across multiple platforms.
Add IPs to Firewall/WAF allowlists (recommended)
For certain features like heatmaps (opens in a new tab), your Web Application Firewall (WAF) may be blocking PostHog’s requests to your site. Add these IP addresses to your WAF allowlist or rules to let PostHog access your site.
EU: 3.75.65.221, 18.197.246.42, 3.120.223.253
US: 44.205.89.55, 52.4.194.122, 44.208.188.173
These are public, stable IPs used by PostHog services (e.g., Celery tasks for snapshots).
Once initialized in instrumentation-client.js|ts, import posthog from posthog-js anywhere and call the methods you need on the posthog object.
JavaScript
PostHog AI
'use client'
import posthog from 'posthog-js'
export default function Home() {
return (
<div>
<button onClick={() => posthog.capture('test_event')}>
Click me for an event
</button>
</div>
);
}The React feature flag hooks (opens in a new tab) work automatically when PostHog is initialized via instrumentation-client.ts. The hooks use the initialized posthog-js singleton:
JavaScript
PostHog AI
'use client'
import { useFeatureFlagEnabled } from 'posthog-js/react'
export default function FeatureComponent() {
const showNewFeature = useFeatureFlagEnabled('new-feature')
return showNewFeature ? <NewFeature /> : <OldFeature />
}See the React SDK docs (opens in a new tab) for examples of how to use:
You can also read the full posthog-js documentation (opens in a new tab) for all the usable functions.
Next.js enables you to both server-side render pages and add server-side functionality. To integrate PostHog into your Next.js app on the server-side, you can use the Node SDK (opens in a new tab).
First, install the posthog-node library:
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npm install posthog-node --saveyarn add posthog-nodepnpm add posthog-nodebun add posthog-nodeFor the app router, we can initialize the posthog-node SDK once with a PostHogClient function, and import it into files.
This enables us to send events and fetch data from PostHog on the server – without making client-side requests.
JavaScript
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// app/posthog.js
import { PostHog } from 'posthog-node'
export default function PostHogClient() {
const posthogClient = new PostHog(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_TOKEN, {
host: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST,
flushAt: 1,
flushInterval: 0
})
return posthogClient
}Note: Because server-side functions in Next.js can be short-lived, we set
flushAtto1andflushIntervalto0.
flushAtsets how many capture calls we should flush the queue (in one batch).flushIntervalsets how many milliseconds we should wait before flushing the queue. Setting them to the lowest number ensures events are sent immediately and not batched. We also need to callawait posthog.shutdown()once done.
To use this client, we import it into our pages and call it with the PostHogClient function:
JavaScript
PostHog AI
import Link from 'next/link'
import PostHogClient from '../posthog'
export default async function About() {
const posthog = PostHogClient()
const flags = await posthog.getAllFlags(
'user_distinct_id' // replace with a user's distinct ID
);
await posthog.shutdown()
return (
<main>
<h1>About</h1>
<Link href="/">Go home</Link>
{ flags['main-cta'] &&
<Link href="http://posthog.com/">Go to PostHog</Link>
}
</main>
)
}For the pages router, we can use the getServerSideProps function to access PostHog on the server-side, send events, evaluate feature flags, and more.
This looks like this:
JavaScript
PostHog AI
// pages/posts/[id].js
import { useContext, useEffect, useState } from 'react'
import { getServerSession } from "next-auth/next"
import { PostHog } from 'posthog-node'
export default function Post({ post, flags }) {
const [ctaState, setCtaState] = useState()
useEffect(() => {
if (flags) {
setCtaState(flags['blog-cta'])
}
})
return (
<div>
<h1>{post.title}</h1>
<p>By: {post.author}</p>
<p>{post.content}</p>
{ctaState &&
<p><a href="/">Go to PostHog</a></p>
}
<button onClick={likePost}>Like</button>
</div>
)
}
export async function getServerSideProps(ctx) {
const session = await getServerSession(ctx.req, ctx.res)
let flags = null
if (session) {
const client = new PostHog(
process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_TOKEN,
{
host: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST,
}
)
flags = await client.getAllFlags(session.user.email);
client.capture({
distinctId: session.user.email,
event: 'loaded blog article',
properties: {
$current_url: ctx.req.url,
},
});
await client.shutdown()
}
const { posts } = await import('../../blog.json')
const post = posts.find((post) => post.id.toString() === ctx.params.id)
return {
props: {
post,
flags
},
}
}Note: Make sure to always call
await client.shutdown()after sending events from the server-side. PostHog queues events into larger batches, and this call forces all batched events to be flushed immediately.
Next.js overrides the default fetch behavior on the server to introduce their own cache. PostHog ignores that cache by default, as this is Next.js’s default behavior for any fetch call.
You can override that configuration when initializing PostHog, but make sure you understand the pros/cons of using Next.js’s cache and that you might get cached results rather than the actual result our server would return. This is important for feature flags, for example.
TSX
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posthog.init(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_TOKEN, {
// ... your configuration
fetch_options: {
cache: 'force-cache', // Use Next.js cache
next_options: { // Passed to the `next` option for `fetch`
revalidate: 60, // Cache for 60 seconds
tags: ['posthog'], // Can be used with Next.js `revalidateTag` function
},
}
})To improve the reliability of client-side tracking and make requests less likely to be intercepted by tracking blockers, you can setup a reverse proxy in Next.js. Read more about deploying a reverse proxy using Next.js rewrites (opens in a new tab), Next.js middleware (opens in a new tab), and Vercel rewrites (opens in a new tab).
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