Chapter 4: Building a Server-Side-Rendered Community Feed Using Next.js

So far, you've learned how React applications are typically Single-Page Applications (SPAs) and can be kickstarted using Create React App. This means the application is rendered on the client side, making it load in the browser when the user visits your application. But did you know React also supports Server-Side Rendering (SSR), as you might remember from back in the old days when code only rendered from a server?

In this chapter, you'll learn how to create an application that has components dynamically loaded from the server instead of the browser. To enable SSR, we'll be using Next.js instead of Create React App. Next.js is a framework for React applications and adds additional features to React. If you're interested in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SSR comes with the advantage that we can add metadata to the application so it can be better indexed by search engines.

The following...