React framework with server render for blazing fast page load and seamless transitions between pages in the browser.

What is it?

React Server is an Express middleware for serving universal (isomorphic) JavaScript applications built with React.

Read more on our dev blog.

Getting started

The easiest way to get started is with our yeoman generator:

# install yeoman
npm install -g yo

# install the react-server generator
npm install -g generator-react-server

# make a new react-server project in the CURRENT directory
yo react-server

# compile and run the new app
npm run compile
npm run start
# go to http://localhost:3000

That hooks you up with react-server-cli, which will take care of the server part and get you up and running right away.

Why react-server?

One of the great things about React is its support for server-side rendering, which can make sites show up faster for users and play better with search engine bots.

However, when you actually try to use React for server-side rendering, you quickly run into a bunch of practical problems, such as:

• How should I load data on the server for my components?
• How do I ensure that the client and the server load the same data and generate the same HTML markup?
• How do I write code that can be both generated server-side and be part of a single-page application (SPA)?
• How should I optimize the delivery of my JavaScript and CSS?
• How do I find out about and follow performance best practices?
• How do I ensure that my site is streamed to the browser as quickly as humanly possible?
• How can I make my app resilient when my backend has high latency spikes?

react-server is a framework designed to make universal (née isomorphic) React easier to write, providing standard answers for these questions and more. When you write your app for react-server, you concentrate on your React components, and react-server takes care of everything else that's needed to run and deploy real React server-rendered apps. Under the hood, react-server is doing a bunch of clever optimizations, many borrowed from the ideas behind Facebook's Big Pipe, to make sure that your site shows up as quickly as humanly possible for your users.

Once you're hungry for more, dig into the docs.