How can I use Node.js and React to build a server-side rendered web application?

Install Node.js and React

In order to build a server-side rendered web application using Node.js and React, you must first install both of them. Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code on the server-side, while React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. To install Node.js, you can download it from nodejs.org. To install React, you can use the create-react-app package from npm. Once both are installed, you can start building your server-side rendered web application.

Create a React App

In this step, we will create a React app using Node.js and React. To do this, we will use the create-react-app package. This package allows us to quickly create a React application with no build configuration. To install it, run the following command in your terminal:

npm install -g create-react-app

Once the installation is complete, you can create a new React app by running the following command:

create-react-app my-app

This will create a new directory called "my-app" with all the necessary files for a React application. You can then start the development server by running the following command:

cd my-app
npm start

This will start the development server and open your browser to http://localhost:3000/. You can now start developing your React application.

Set Up Server-Side Rendering

Server-side rendering (SSR) is a popular technique for rendering a normally client-side only single page application (SPA) on the server and then sending a fully rendered page to the client. To set up server-side rendering with Node.js and React, you need to install Node.js and React, create a React app, and create routes and components. To get started, you'll need to install Node.js and React. You can do this by running the following command in your terminal:

npm install -g node react

create-react-app my-app

const express = require('express');
const React = require('react');
const renderToString = require('react-dom/server').renderToString;
const App = require('./src/App');

const server = express();
server.get('/', (req, res) => {
  const initialMarkup = renderToString();

  res.send(`
    
      
        
      
      
        
${initialMarkup}
        
      
    
  `);
});
server.listen(3000);

Create Routes

In order to create routes for our server-side rendered web application, we need to install the React Router Dom package. This package provides us with the necessary components to create routes and link them to our components. After installing the package, we can create routes in our App.js file. We can use the <Route> component to define a route and the <Link> component to link it to a component. For example:

import { Route, Link } from 'react-router-dom';

<Route path="/about" component={About} />
<Link to="/about">About</Link>

The above code will create a route for the About page and link it to the About component. We can also use the <Switch> component to group multiple routes together and render only one of them at a time. For example:

import { Route, Switch } from 'react-router-dom';

<Switch>
  <Route path="/about" component={About} />
  <Route path="/contact" component={Contact} />
  <Route path="/home" component={Home} />
</Switch>

The above code will create three routes for the About, Contact and Home pages and render only one of them at a time.

Add Components

Now that you have your server-side rendered web application set up, it's time to add components. Components are the building blocks of React applications and are used to create the user interface. To add components, you will need to create a new file in your project directory and name it App.js. Inside this file, you will need to import React and create a class component with a render method. Inside the render method, you will need to return the HTML code for your component. You can also use React Hooks to create functional components.

import React from 'react';

class App extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>My App</h1>
      </div>
    );
  }
}
export default App;

Once you have created your component, you will need to import it into your main index.js file and render it using the ReactDOM.render() method. This will allow your component to be rendered on the server-side.

Useful Links

• Node.js and React Tutorial
• How to Build a Server-Side Rendered React App with Node.js
• How to Set Up a Node.js Application for Production on Ubuntu 18.04
• Building Server Side Rendered React Applications
• How to Build a Serverless ReactJS Applications Using Node.js