MERN Stack Blog Application

A fully-featured blog application built using the MERN stack, featuring user authentication, blog management, and responsive design.

Features

• User Authentication: Email verification, Google authentication, and JWT-based sessions.
• Profile Management: Users can update their profile with images, username, city, phone number, and email.
• Blog Management: Create, edit, and delete blogs. Search for blogs by name or keywords.
• Comments: Users can comment on and delete comments from blog posts.
• Email Notifications: Sends welcome emails, email verification, and password reset instructions using Mailtrap.
• Responsive Design: Built using Bootstrap 5 for mobile-friendly layouts.

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React, Zustand (State Management), React Query (Data Fetching), Bootstrap 5
• Backend: Node.js, Express.js, MongoDB
• Email Service: Mailtrap for transactional emails
• Authentication: JWT, Google Authentication

Prerequisites

• Node.js
• MongoDB (local instance or cloud-based)

Getting Started

Clone the repository

Create a .env file in the root directory and set the following variables

Install both server and client dependencies

Start the Development Server

Navigate to the client folder and start the React application

PORT = 8000
MONGO_URL = <Your MongoDB URI>
JWT_SECRET = "MERN-BLOG"
NODE_ENV = "production"
CLIENT_URL = http://localhost:3000
MAILTRAP_TOKEN = <Your Mailtrap Token>
MAILTRAP_ENDPOINT = send.api.mailtrap.io

npm install - to both server and client dependencies
npm run dev - to Start the Development Server
cd client -> npm start - to start the client react app