How to Integrate Mixpanel with Remix?

When working on Tribe[https://tribe.best], we needed to integrate Mixpanel for analytics in our Remix app. However, I ran into a challenge—there was no documentation specifically for Remix, and my initial attempts led to hydration errors.

After a bit of trial and error, I found a simple solution that works without issues, and I want to share the process so others can follow it.

Step 1: Install Mixpanel

Before diving into the code, you need to install the mixpanel-browser package. If you're using TypeScript, it's also helpful to install the types.

npm install mixpanel-browser
npm install --save-dev @types/mixpanel-browser

This will install Mixpanel’s client-side JavaScript library, which is necessary for browser-based analytics.

Step 2: Edit entry.client.ts

Next, we need to ensure that Mixpanel is initialized on the client side, avoiding hydration issues by controlling when and how Mixpanel is added to the app.

In your entry.client.ts file, add the following code:

import { RemixBrowser } from "@remix-run/react";
import { hydrateRoot } from "react-dom/client";
import { StrictMode, useEffect } from "react";
import mixpanel from "mixpanel-browser";

// Function to initialize Mixpanel in production
function MixpanelInit() {
  useEffect(() => {
    if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "production") {
      mixpanel.init("your-mixpanel-token-here", {
        track_pageview: "url-with-path", // Configure as needed
      });
    }
  }, []);

  return null;
}

// Hydrate the Remix app with Mixpanel initialized
hydrateRoot(
  document,
  <StrictMode>
    <RemixBrowser />
    <MixpanelInit />
  </StrictMode>
);

Step 3: Add tracking for your events

Now you are all set to add tracking for your events in you code. Example:

import mixpanel from "mixpanel-browser";
mixpanel.track("login_opened");

Step 4: Test the Integration
After adding this code, deploy your app and verify that Mixpanel is successfully receiving data. You can log into Mixpanel and check for incoming events to ensure the integration is working properly in production.

Common Issues

If you run into any hydration errors, double-check the following:

Ensure that MixpanelInit is only running on the client side by wrapping it with useEffect and the process.env.NODE_ENV check.
Verify that your Mixpanel token is correct and that your configuration options match your needs.

Conclusion

This method should solve any hydration errors when integrating Mixpanel with your Remix app. By ensuring the Mixpanel script only runs on the client side and not during server-side rendering, you can avoid the issues I ran into.

Feel free to explore how we implemented this in production at Tribe[https://tribe.best]!