A basic example

We will now create a very simple server-side application to look at the steps that are needed to build a basic Universal setup.

It is going to be a minimal and simple set-up on purpose, because the goal here is to show how SSR works rather than providing a comprehensive solution or a boilerplate, even though you could use the example application as a starting point for a real-world application.

Note

This section assumes that all the concepts regarding JavaScript build tools, such as Webpack and its loaders, are clear, and it requires a little bit of knowledge of Node.js. As a JavaScript developer, it should be easy for you to follow this section, even if you have never seen a Node.js application before.

The application will consist of two parts:

• The server-side, where we will use Express to create a basic web server and serve an HTML page with the server-side rendered React application

• The client side, where we will render the application as usual, using react-dom.

Both sides of...