React Server Components

Choosing only client rendering, server rendering, or static generation can limit an application. Server Components let developers choose what runs on the server or client for each component, keeping heavy dependencies such as Markdown and date libraries off the client.

Server-side rendering sends HTML to speed up the initial display, but the browser still downloads and runs the client components. Server Components instead return a description of the rendered UI that React can merge with existing client components, allowing updates without losing client state.

Suspense can show a loading fallback while code or data loads and help avoid sequential network requests. The talk also describes Concurrent Mode as allowing components to render as data streams in and supporting multiple state updates.

Server Components require Node.js, so teams need a server or serverless hosting provider. In the note-taking demo, selecting a note triggers a request whose response updates the server-rendered detail while preserving client state such as the search text. The project was open source, and Server Components were still experimental.