localhost:5173

1. ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED — “This site can’t be reached”

   Nothing is listening on 5173. Nine times out of ten the dev server is simply not running.

   bash

   cd your-project
   npm install
   npm run dev

2. You typed localhost5173 and landed here

   Without the colon the browser treats it as a search term, so a search engine answered instead of your machine. The address needs the colon.

   address bar

   http://localhost:5173

3. “Port 5173 is in use, trying another one…”

   Another dev server — usually one you forgot to stop — holds the port, so Vite quietly moves to 5174, 5175, and so on. Either open the port it printed, or free 5173.

   bash

   # macOS / Linux
   kill -9 $(lsof -ti:5173)
   
   # Windows
   netstat -ano | findstr :5173
   taskkill /PID <pid> /F
   
   # either
   npx kill-port 5173

4. Works on your laptop, not on your phone

   localhost always means “this device”. On the phone it points at the phone, where nothing is running. Expose the server and open the Network URL Vite prints.

   bash

   npm run dev -- --host
   # ➜ Network: http://192.168.x.x:5173/

5. Someone sent you a localhost:5173 link

   That link was never public — it pointed at the sender’s own machine. Ask for a deployed preview, or have them open a tunnel.

   bash

   cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:5173
   # or
   npx localtunnel --port 5173

6. Dead inside Docker, WSL or a codespace

   The server binds to 127.0.0.1 inside the container, which the host cannot see. Bind to every interface and publish the port.

   bash

   vite --host 0.0.0.0
   docker run -p 5173:5173 my-image

7. https://localhost:5173 does not load

   The dev server speaks plain HTTP. The s makes the browser wait for a TLS handshake that never comes. Drop it, or add a dev certificate.

   address bar

   http://localhost:5173
   # TLS in dev:
   npm i -D @vitejs/plugin-basic-ssl

8. You want a port other than 5173

   Two projects fighting over one port, a firewall rule, a proxy expecting something fixed. strictPort makes Vite fail loudly instead of silently sliding to 5174.

   vite.config.js

   // vite.config.js
   export default defineConfig({
     server: { port: 3000, strictPort: true }
   })
   
   # or once:
   npm run dev -- --port 3000

• Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc

  Shift + Delete

  Start typing until the wrong entry appears, press ↓ to highlight it, then Shift + Delete. On a Mac keyboard without a Delete key: Shift + Fn + Backspace.

• Firefox

  Shift + Delete

  Same handling: highlight the suggestion with ↓, then Shift + Delete removes it from the address bar history.

• Safari

  via History

  Safari has no shortcut for a single suggestion. Open History (⌘ Y), search for localhost, select the entries and press Backspace.

• Phones and tablets

  via History

  The suggestion is fed from your browsing history. Delete the localhost entries there and it stops appearing.

Afterwards, type the address with the colon — or better, bookmark it. The omnibox learns from what you actually pick.

# wrong — the browser searches for this
localhost5173

# right — the colon makes it an address
http://localhost:5173

• Vite

  Every template — vanilla, React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Preact, Lit — starts here on npm run dev.

• SvelteKit

  Built on Vite, so vite dev opens the same port.

• React Router v7 / Remix

  Its Vite-powered dev server uses 5173 too.

• Qwik

  Qwik City runs on Vite, and therefore on 5173.

• Laravel + Vite

  The Vite plugin serves assets from 5173 while PHP answers on 8000.

• A screenshot

  Tutorials, bug reports and screen recordings are full of localhost:5173 links. They only ever worked on the machine that recorded them.

Vite 2 started on port 3000 — and so did Next.js, Nuxt, Create React App and roughly every Node backend ever written. Vite 3 moved out of that traffic jam in 2022 and picked something nobody else was using. Fewer collisions, fewer “port already in use” messages on the first run of the day.

The number itself has a second reading that the community likes better: 5173 spells SITE in leetspeak.

5 → S
1 → I
7 → T
3 → E

Take that part as folklore rather than documentation. The practical reason — getting away from the crowded 3000 — is the one that mattered.