Server-side rendering (SSR) in React can be difficult to wrap your head around. You're rendering on the server, then rendering on the client too? Since the SSR pattern has become more prevalent, the React team has made it easier to work within React 16. In addition, there are a number of internal performance gains as well as efficiency gains by enabling streaming rendered content to the client.
If you want to read more about SSR in React 16, I recommend the following resources:
- https://hackernoon.com/whats-new-with-server-side-rendering-in-react-16-9b0d78585d67
- https://reactjs.org/docs/react-dom-server.html
However, in this book, the focus will be on using Next.js for SSR since it's so much easier than using a manual setup. Next.js is a simple framework for building React applications that handles many gory details related to routing and SSR.
Now that you're familiar with the big changes that came with React 16, it's time to take a look at the cutting edge features available in the latest React release.
