[SOLVED] Is it possible to secure OpenAI API key in ReactJS without backend?

Is it possible to secure OpenAI API key in ReactJS without backend?

I’m building a ReactJS app that calls the OpenAI API.

Since React is frontend-only, if I put the API key in the code, it will be visible in the browser or network tab.

Is there any safe way to hide the API key without creating my own backend or any other solutions?

I tried calling the OpenAI API directly from my ReactJS frontend and adding the API key in the fetch request header.

fetch("https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    Authorization: "Bearer MY_API_KEY",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    model: "gpt-4o-mini",
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello" }],
  }),
});

I expected my React app to call OpenAI directly and return a response without exposing the API key.

The request worked, but the API key is visible in the **browser’s network tab **and can be copied by anyone. is there any way to handle this without backend??

Solution

No. There is no way to securely use an OpenAI API key in a frontend-only React app. Anything you ship to the browser (including headers and environment variables bundled at build time) is fully visible to the user through the devtools or network tab.

If you need to protect your API key, you must introduce a backend layer (even a minimal serverless function) that stores the key in an environment variable and proxies requests to OpenAI. Without a backend, the only alternative is to ask each user to provide their own API key, but then it will be visible to them and is still insecure to distribute at scale.