React Server Components are a bad choice (for shipping) 

You are doing such a great job advocating for traditional backend frameworks. Keep it up ❤

I am a "young dev" and the first scripting language I learned was PHP, so I soon started using Laravel, later paired with Vue. When scrolling through my twitter feed, I always thought that the grass on the new shiny serverless side of the web development world was greener. So for a recent project I used Nuxt and I wanted to use a javascript framework for my backend too. This was when I realized that there isn't really a mature solution for this purpose yet - and the reason so many young frontend devs praise those new frameworks is because their applications don't have a backend. They rely on third party headless CMSes or APIs like the Shopify API - which are seldomly written in javascript themselves.

OK, this video made me smile! I've been doing web dev since the mid-1990s, and I've seen ideas rise, fall, then return again. Through it all, I have seen steady bedrock techniques that last. I have had a good laugh as each new group of young devs says "how can you keep using that old framework..." only to see 2 years later that their shiny, "new" framework is now the "old" one, and on and on it goes. I'm one of those people who has been using Django, Laravel, and CodeIgniter for many years. They just do everything, and they do it solidly and reliably. For Javascript, I just use, um... Javascript. I've been fatigued by all the Javascript frameworks. Yeah, I understand that they try to pretty up the ugly edges of Javascript. But then they become a burden themselves, and then of course they become "old." Glad to see someone else gets this.

I’m tired of having to re-learn frontend every week. We are in a weird middle ground right now between "client-side rendering sucks" and "let’s move everything to the server". Next.js for example is now fully server-side, but a lot of the existing features only work on client-side still. Also, a lot of packages like styled-components do not work on the server. TL;DR: By moving everything to the server we are breaking a lot of things along the way, the entire frontend ecosystem seems extremely unstable and without a clear direction of where to go next. I’m seeing multiple content creators pointing this out as well, and many of them are moving to other (more stable and mature) frameworks like Laravel, Django, and Rails and doing frontend the “old way” using server-side MVC. These old frontends will likely survive longer than all these javascript over-engineered monstrosities

Aaron, you are just delightful. You come across as so positive and excited, while speaking critically about things in this hypey ecosystem. And I love your cadence. Keep up the wonderful work ❤

It wasn't too too long ago that we (backend devs) wouldn't have had this insight. For me, it was when Laravel added Vue to the scaffolding and the community full on embraced it. We were so excited to have our cake (Laravel) and an easy way to reactivity too. I doubt we will see the same embrace from the JS community without the emergence of the cohesive solutions we've seen in the Laravel ecosystem. Great video!

I don’t know enough about these new JS on the edge stacks, but it seems to me that the point is having consistent types across your frontend and backend. And also exploring the possibility of relying on functions that can run both on the browser and on the server. And dispersing your app to run as near to your users as possible. Maybe Laravel already has answers to all of this, but it essentially can’t compete with the portability of JS.

I sometimes feel sorry for people who don't use something like TALL stack

I agree with you that backend frameworks have solved so much, and I do miss a lot of those built in features. The issue is that they have not solved integration with the (modern JS) front end. Yes you can use react with django, but that is 10x more complex than regular django. You are now giving up all the nice session auth and templates and need to build a rest or graphQL API. then you need to make the API calls from the front end. I would argue that the back and forth between the backend and frontend is most of the actual work that you will end up doing. React Server components is not about moving react to the backend, it is about blending the 2 worlds in a way that has never been done this seamlessly before. The only comparable thing to this is Inertia from laravel, which still does not have the true wow factor that RSC is providing.

Yeah in javascript land you gotta use a separate SAAS for every feature where Laravel etc have it built in. I do like writing typescript over PHP but at the end of the day they are just tools and these preferences should not be more of an influence than getting the work done.

You have convinced me to try out php again, it's a pleasure listening to you. Great videos!

Good video. I’ve been feeling like going back to the old ways for a while. I keep going in about php. I can see things are going full circle.

Another eye-opening video, thank you, Aaron. I'm switching to PHP. I don't want to spend my life building monsters in JS. I just want to build good apps and solve real problems :)

It's the mixture of both CSR and SSR/SSG in component/layout level that makes react on server so cool None of the server-side frameworks (django, laravel, ruby on rails, spring & even Nestjs) can do component level SSG Also type sharing (if using typescript) is a huge plus point

Very good video man! I see you haven't made many others for tech, I hope you decide to in the future!

Again great video, I totally agree with most you said and I'd love to see more!

You're exactly on point with those. The project I'm working on right now is a Craft CMS (php) as the real back end, and Next JS. I wouldn't call Next a back end, though. In my view, it is an SPA in a remote client (or remote browser) that pre-renders the page when JS is disabled on the client's browser and optimize assets. It's no back end, though. Btw, if you haven't already, you should try Symfony some time. It's like Laravel but more idiomatic, with less magic. With a good IDE (like PHPStorm), I feel like I'm more productive with it since the patterns are more predictable.

Please keep fighting this fight for us. After 10 years of professional experience in JavaScript land, I'm so tired of having to rebuild everything in JS land with yet another paid SaaS, a subpar solution, or another old idea we used to do in PHP some 20 years ago. The only thing that kept me sane is NestJS, but it's still far from being as batteries included as Laravel or Rails. Sometimes it feels like we're doing all this just to avoid learning another programming language? SaaS companies taking advantage of the fact that you need to cobble up all these JS libraries and sell you platforms? Or just devs like building stuff from scratch in JS? I don't know. I might have as well went to sleep the past decade and I wouldn't have missed much.

Finally someone said it. I’m mostly a frontend engineer (~12 years of exp) and I couldn’t agree more with what you say. I’m working on a project to solidify my backend skills (w/laravel) and it’s a night and day difference compared to [any Node.js Framework] For instance, “dang I think I need to use queues for this, what should I do now!? oh Laravel has it already”, “Oops I need to do cronjobs!!!! oh Laravel already has that”, etcetcetc Keep the good content, I love it!

Great insight - what is the goal, compared to jumping to solutions, is refreshing

The Laravel (rails) alternative for Nodejs would be Adonisjs or Nestjs, if you consider the maturity of a PHP framework by counting its number of years of activities and features availability during those years I would go for Symfony or CakePHP.

That is a really good question you said there, which a lot of devs forget. What are you optimizing for? Building a stable backbone with proven years of service and maturity? Then probably, django, Laravel, Spring, or Rails would be a good choice. Optimizing for having developers proficient only in react/typescript? Probably react/typescript server side frameworks are your best options. Love your content btw, especially your mysql tutorial in an another page. Hope to see more tutorials from you especially about advanced stuff no one else seems to care much 😊

Massive fan of Rails. We use it heavily for all our APIs in production and pair it with React for frontend

Finally a reasonable RU-vidr speaking with common sense about all this React Hype.

Vue/Blade & Laravel = love

aaron, this was a great video. please promote yourself more because your videos should reach a lot of people. keep up the good work. God bless

Thanks Aaron great videos and can't wait for another

Certainly reminds me of old php days. Imagine writing a complex SQL. That would be messy. Also sql in the same page as html. We have really come a long way.

great video! Glad I stuck with Drupal and various other php fun. I had a feeling it would come full circle back in 2014 when "JS Developer" cut down php and mysql right to my face. I was like "ok"..

Been using server components for quite sometimes. I must say it hasn't been productive for me. After all, my intention is all about shipping products. Thank you for this video.

I so love your perspective in this video. I'm a PHP/Laravel developer and I only use React on the frontend. I don't see the need for me to move to the backend with React or NextJs. If I want to use Js, then I use ExpressJs for my API or I build that with Laravel. Who cares???? Let the job be done and let it be done properly. At the end of the day, work should be delivered.

I really grab your concept and I think this to be totally true! Someone had to say it and you just did

What do you think about wasp-lang? Inspired by rails, based on React, NodeJS and prisma

I'm glad that I dont listen to those JS hype influencers. Im efficient using laravel and vue js and I can deliver projects faster.

Love your DB videos, and was really interested in your opinion on this; however, I really didn't hear anything in this video that convinced me to move away from react frameworks like Next.js or Remix. I'll be honest about having only a basic knowledge of PHP and brief experience with Ruby on Rails, but simply didn't enjoy developing with them as much as I do with react. I completely acknowledge a business or project should prioritise what is the most effective way of shipping a production ready app to the end users; but for me, I need to enjoy what I am doing to be my most productive. For better or worse, the "hype train" keeps me excited and passionate, and that keeps me productive. My instincts tell me this might be a defining difference between many "traditional" Vs "bleeding edge" developers learning more towards the backend vs frontend.

but how do we do SSR if we don't use Next, Remix, Node and we use for example golang for the backend?

My recent app was with react frontend / laravel backend and it was great . You cant go wrong with it.

I really wish there was a ‘react create-app’ that worked within the context of rails/laravel/django. That would be really amazing. I say this as a laravel/livewire dev. Perhaps I’ll add that to my list of things I probably won’t ever do 😂

Great video buddy

Let's not forget Flux and it's 17 or so different implementations before Redux took the lead. With the idea being, "well, since we're pushing the backend down to the frontend, might as well send the entire database while we're at it."

I've been raving about this !

Awesome video. It’s why I’m working on The Boring JavaScript Stack (Sails, Inertia, Tailwind CSS, Vue|React|Svelte) Knowing JavaScript is a strong advantage and having it across the stack with a stable and boring framework like Sails is gonna be super good Thanks for sharing Aaron

Great video!

Am bullish on plain old vanilla - everything!

Thank you for breaking bubble. Keep it up.

Aaron you spoke about having one single backend framework with all the stuff you need with docs in one place. We got NextJS that's been around for a while, and Remix that's making heads turn lately.. The whole argument of backend frameworks like Laravel having solved stuff 10 years ago is mute coz, Laravel doesn't render your react components. Hence saying we'll do it the old way coz it was solved 10 years ago would mean you cant usher into the capabilities RSC brings. So do you wanna hold on to legacy or keep up with the times ? Coz when the backend React eco system gets mature it's going to make Laravel look like yesterday :D

I don't think is fair compare RSC with fully feature frameworks is not the same. But I get your point: why try something new if there is an already tested an fully feature framework that works?

Really interested in Laravel, but I also want to be able to use the backend for a native mobile app. As the FE and BE is coupled with Laravel, I am back at square one with a client + server setup. Silverlining is Spring Soot, which comes with everything you need. Now I'm strongly considering HTMX on the frontend to keep things simple.

I am very curious why you didn't mentioned Nodejs when talking about backend frameworks? Is it not that good compared to Laravel, Rails or Django?

Use nextJS with express prisms is optional

I think it would have been nice to have you exemplify why those snippets seem like they were written by PHP devs 10+ years ago.

what's about nodejs? are there any mature frameworks, like django/rails/laravel ?

Aaron you have great takes.

hurray 4k sub

Did I just witness an 'emperor's new clothes' moment?

Fun fact if you take a closer look at react how it works under the hood and how the rendering of HTML gets rendered by Javascript. It basically looks like a pimped PHP for client side. I mean it's developed by Facebook to convince the PHP guys to use this for frontend. With time evolving we see suddenly so many similarities coming up between react and php leading us to "wtf it's so similar why should I use this over that" 😂 I guess we coming now full circle!

I use NestJS on the backend and it's fairly good.

I've played around with Laravel and I really like it. But I was confused that there are no automatic migrations like with prisma? How can it be missing that?

true true, server side again hahah, ok ok, will combine Rust + template + Svelte, done

i totally agree

Django backend is a great dev experience

I was building a fullstack framework, for simplicity I decided to go with react server components, and let me tell you they're so painful to work with, you can't use hooks which is the purpose of React, overall, I don't think they are production ready yet

Frankenstein framework? I died! I couldn't agree more though.

is it possible to have a laravel + react app with react SSR?

What if I do not like php and python at all, never used ruby, been doing NodeJS/NestJS for about 4/5 years. Should I still consider your suggestions?

You've just open my eyes

I totally agree with you.

Lol.. I said this same thing Aaron, coming from my PHP days

React + PHP, the winning combo.

Totally agree 👍

Need your course on laravel, php, and MySQL. If you have one already, please let me know!

One of the best takes ever

Yes. Next JS is so Frankenstein

I love the humor... "i dunno" 😅

I feel like react server components might be interesting for doing API calls to the backend, on the backend, and generating your html and serving it that way, but please for the love of all that is nice keep your queries out of your FE code 😂

TALL Stack killed SPA and other frontend frameworks for me. I would learn vuejs as my frontend framework alongside laravel as my backend. But I've just heard that Livewire v2 is released, and it's fantastic, and I didn't return to Vuejs after that. And lately, I've created one of my biggest apps using FilamentPHP, and man, I am so proud that I chose TALL Stack over Vuejs and Nuxt.

AdonisJS which is full featured(Fastify do it too but with another philosophy), is totally ignored by the community of JS devs overall when they talk about "JS front end to end" and I cannot understand why. Express is totally shit tho' and it asks so much energy to bridge everything, same for theses new shiny back-end things through next and alike.

Man, even if you want to use TS/JS for your backend, AdonisJS is pretty solid. RSC is just not it... people will suffer a lot when Vercel drops this and starts marketing some other fancy thing... maybe React Edge Components 😅

I made the right decision then, React+Laravel 🎉🎉

About clobbering documentation, ChatGPT and friends came to the rescue 😜

Yeah agreed. React and next is just lost the way. I really think this is all to get vercel to rent more servers

People who are not using Laravel, even as an API at the very least, are missing out.

3:01 the idea that RSCs require servers instead of serverless/edge is wrong on so many levels 😂

How did you notice that 😅 it Exactly like PHP being 10 years before what the h***

I still use Laravel, Blade, and jQuery in my indie projects ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Laravel is like huge ship 🛳️ everything overthere

I know this video is 8 months old but I hope that you in meantime learned that RSC is the real deal.👍

Overall I agree with ur RSC opinions. I think it was a bad move by the React team. But I can't really agree that having separate packages will increase complexity (coordination burden). Why do the packages have to know each other?? You mention auth package and background jobs. Email package with cron job package?? Come on, these packages are completely independent and wouldnt make any sense for the framework to do any kind of coordination here. I like the fact that I can pick the ones I need and for each one there are multiple options. Sure sometimes there are TOO many options, but u dont need to know all of them. Similarly u dont have to use RSC or chase the top treding packages in the javascript eco system. On the other hand if u use a big fat framework, sure it would have "most" of the things u need. But it could be quite opinionated, bottlenecked by the framework maintainers, high learning curve etc.

me hearing people "yes but php has ugly sintax" :))

React Server Component is A LIVEWIRE FOR JAVASCRIPT

i was watching hype train since 2018 from react to vue to next to nuxt to svelte to sveltekit i am here just saying guys php is doing fine why are you going in this cyclic hype train but even recruiters are swept in that hype train

Im confused as to what your channel is about 😭 just switched to web dev talks?

The point of running React (or any of the other UI frameworks) on the server is to write code once, have it run on both client and server. It's misleading to suggest that using using something like Rails to serve React is equivalent. I've spent years in UI code bases written in Rails/Django templates, gradually converting them to React. You can't have Rails/Django render your UI on the first pass, then have React (or similar) hydrate it, period. You need the same framework on the server and the client. You can argue that hydration/etc isn't necessary, and maybe in some cases it's not, but you're willfully ignoring whole categories of applications that people build on the web. Not everything can be a SPA, and not everything can be purely server-side rendered HTML templates, so you end up with the hybrid UI frameworks we're seeing pop up now. These _have_ to run the same code on the client as they do on the server. There are no "old" backend frameworks to "rediscover" here, because "old" frameworks never handled the hybrid case at all. I don't think anyone's advocating for using RSC to build backends, and I guarantee you that any meaningfully large org will split the frontend stack (client+server-side rendering) from the backend stack (use Rails/Django/Laraval here, if you want). I think you're taking all of the RU-vid videos with people querying Postgres from React components too literally. Some small app might go that route at first, but no one should take those examples too seriously. Ignoring all this, especially the hybrid app scenario, in a video with a title like "RSC are a bad choice" is not great, and you can do better.

React Server comps was a knee-jerk reaction to Svelte outperforming React by 100x. RSC is a desperate gasp for air by a library that is seeing a fair few alternatives, with improvements over React, chomping at it's heels. web dev is like pop music, what's cool yesterday is dead tomorrow, then sometimes something will come back around. I think a lot of people are just sick of react and want something new (same as happened with php years ago). Every day sees a new post on r/react by someone who struggles to learn it, is frustrated by it, generally wants something else to take its place. And react does have its issues. it has almost defined the term "foot guns". No other framework or library seems to be so divisive.

I have never tried Laravel bc I am scared I might like it. I feel like using php/python/ruby in the long run would become a burden in maintainance terms, so I prefer to stick with statically typed, whether that is c# w/aspnet or kotlin w/spring. I do feel old, if you ask 😅

Php did its time it doesnt desserve this shade.

I’ve been watching some videos on RSC and I can’t understand what’s so new. You’re….just making a backend in react? Woo you’re writing plain html and forms.

From the intro: "I don't know a modern dev who would write something like this" is hard to learn from. What didn't you like about what you saw?

@t3dotgg would like to disagree

I hate that I seem to agree with you