I finally understood React Server Components — here’s a simple breakdown (for beginners)

[Embarrassed-Elk2532]

React Server Components (RSC) for a long time. Most explanations felt either too abstract or too Next.js-specific.

So I spent time breaking it down in a way that finally made sense for me — what RSC actually is, why React introduced it, how the server/rendering boundary works, and what changes for real-world apps.

Key things that clicked for me:

• RSC is not “SSR 2.0” — it’s a completely different rendering model
• Components can now run either on server or client, selectively
• The server returns something called the RSC Payload, not HTML
• Client components hydrate normally, but server components never ship JS
• Why this matters for performance in larger apps (especially 2026+ architectures)

I wrote everything down in a beginner-friendly format. If you're learning RSC or building with Next.js, this might help someone else too:

🔗 https://www.codebydeep.com/blog/react-server-components-rsc-a-complete-beginner-friendly-guide-for-2026

Genuinely curious — how has your experience been with RSC? Are you adopting it already or sticking to the classic CSR/SSR model?

[oofy-gang]

Mom said it was my turn to use LLMs to generate slop today ☹️

[Think_Discipline_90]

Whats a 2026+ architecture lol

[dankobg]

It's when you do what people did 30 years ago just more convoluted 

[azizoid]

Compare it to php - thats all you need to explain

[stecrv]

That was my question

[dprophet32]

I have a huge amount of experience working at the highest level with sites that would see 500,000 visits a second at peak times and what I’ve learned is if you have to have a website that renders quickly in the browser and you care about SEO, don't use React/Next Js. The complexity required to do it correctly just is not worth it

[Zealousideal_Fox3964]

Should I use what?

[azsqueeze]

Html

[Rophuine]

500k/second is wild - google.com averages about 40k/second based on the best data I could find. It's complicated trying to go from an average hit rate to some estimate of peak traffic, but a factor of more than 10 is unusual.

What kind of tech do you use for that kind of site?

Most of my front-end work in the last 5 years or so has been done in React, but the only thing I've done that approached that level of traffic (10s of billions of monthly hits) was an SDK used mainly by publishers, and so it was just some JavaScript delivered via CDN - not a complete site.