Legacy React APIs

These APIs are exported from the react package, but they are not recommended for use in newly written code. See the linked individual API pages for the suggested alternatives.

Legacy APIs

Children lets you manipulate and transform the JSX received as the children prop. See alternatives.
cloneElement lets you create a React element using another element as a starting point. See alternatives.
Component lets you define a React component as a JavaScript class. See alternatives.
createElement lets you create a React element. Typically, you’ll use JSX instead.
createRef creates a ref object which can contain arbitrary value. See alternatives.
forwardRef lets your component expose a DOM node to parent component with a ref.
isValidElement checks whether a value is a React element. Typically used with cloneElement.
PureComponent is similar to Component, but it skip re-renders with same props. See alternatives.

Removed APIs

These APIs were removed in React 19:

createFactory: use JSX instead.
Class Components: static contextTypes: use static contextType instead.
Class Components: static childContextTypes: use static contextType instead.
Class Components: static getChildContext: use Context instead.
Class Components: static propTypes: use a type system like TypeScript instead.
Class Components: this.refs: use createRef instead.

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