React (and Vue, et al) was built with client side rendering in mind. It just does not seem to fit the server side rendering pattern.
What are the use cases? From my perspective, if your app is a rich web app with a lot of interactivity, you probably want CSR and don’t benefit much from SSR.
If you have a content-centric site, or a site with some interactivity but not much, you want a static site generator, or SSR. But in that case, a template engine with some smaller client side libraries (jQuery or AlpineJS or idk what all is out there).
Using React SSR for all of these seems like the wrong tool. What am I missing?
I think it’s more a case of the tool being used, not because it’s the best tool for the job, but because it’s the tool the dev knows how to use. SSR allows frontend devs to become full-stack devs.
That’s exactly how we got Javascript on the backend in the first place. I remember when this was the new “weird” thing.