React (and Vue, et al) was built with client side rendering in mind. It just does not seem to fit the server side rendering pattern.
What are the use cases? From my perspective, if your app is a rich web app with a lot of interactivity, you probably want CSR and don’t benefit much from SSR.
If you have a content-centric site, or a site with some interactivity but not much, you want a static site generator, or SSR. But in that case, a template engine with some smaller client side libraries (jQuery or AlpineJS or idk what all is out there).
Using React SSR for all of these seems like the wrong tool. What am I missing?
Hello fellow old person. I mostly agree, and I think we’re starting to see some convergence on the core patterns that will define the “best way” to deliver web apps for years to come. The various offshoots of React are really just evolutions to see what fat we can trim and tighten it up. But functional-reactive UIs as a general thing are here to stay and better than all the other ways we’ve wired up GUIs to date.
After experiencing ad hoc inline scripts, frameworkless jQuery spaghetti code, inflexible monoliths like angular, and overly simplistic micro frameworks like backbone, I’m super happy with where we’re at with react and react like frameworks. I really do feel like we’ve hit the sweet spot between power, simplicity, flexibility, and ease of use which is why I’m confident that things aren’t going to be as volatile as the past. React is already 10 years old now and still going strong with no new trends looking to usurp it. I think those old trends were necessary experiments to get to where we are now, and I think the old meme of web dev changing every week is no longer true.
