This discussion is designed to clarify the differences between client and server components, highlighting their respective advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, it will examine situations that determine the appropriate use of each type of component.

React Server Components (RSC) represent a powerful new paradigm for building fast, interactive web applications by allowing server-side rendering of components alongside client-side ones. While Next.js has emerged as a popular framework for leveraging RSC, it's not the only option.

In this talk, we'll explore how to integrate React Server Components into a custom application without relying on Next.js. You'll learn about the core concepts of RSC, the benefits of server-side rendering, and how to configure your own custom server environment to take full advantage of RSC in any React project. By the end, you'll walk away with a deep understanding of how React Server Components work independently of popular frameworks and how to apply them to improve performance and scalability in your applications.

Building a server driven UI with React is perfect as Reacts dynamic nature makes it easy to render and update UIs based on API responses but it still requires many round trips over the network. React 19 and RSCs are a perfect solution to this problem! By leveraging the new features in React 19 we can now build an even more performant server driven UI. In this talk I’ll demo how I’ve been able to leverage React 19 and RSCs in an enterprise application to build server driven UIs.

React development often doesn’t mean JUST React anymore. Frameworks like NextJS are on the rise and they offer a lot of power out of the box.
But how does it really work in the background? We’ll explore how different rendering strategies like SSR, SSG, CSR or ISR work, when to use each one, and how NextJS can optimise rendering, enhance page speed, and simplify server-side functionality in your React apps.