Question: How do run react-server in production (without react-server-cli)? about react-server HOT 6 CLOSED

Hi @mattiasewers,

Thanks for looking at react-server! You're right, we actually don't use react-server-cli in production, but that's mostly because it didn't exist until much later. We pulled the core of react-server out into a stand-alone package so we could open source it, and @aickin set up the react-server-cli to fill in some of the gaps that were left. It actually provides much more than just a CLI:

• A build that generates javascript bundles for client-side use
• Middleware that handles loading those bundles as needed
• A basic express server that ties it all together
• A CLI for configuring it all

Those are all bits that we do separately at Redfin, but actually react-server-cli does a nicer job in some ways than we do with our internal build. The "routes" file format is much nicer, for example. Medium term we're thinking about how to make those available independent of the "CLI" part of react-server-cli.

There are, still, some things that we use internally that we haven't pried out into packages we can share yet (but we're working on it!)

For example:

• A server cluster with:
  • Fault tolerance/isolation
  • Graceful restart
  • Log file management
• A beacon framework for gathering stats and errors from the browser
• A statsd interface to track all those logger.time values (this is crucial for us)

Our goal is to make those available as soon as we can and let them integrate easily with react-server and react-server-cli.

In the short term, I think the answer is probably: Use react-server-cli --compile-only and run the build it produces in a custom production server. We need some documentation on how to do that.

Thanks for calling this out. I've opened #188 for adding "running in production" documentation.

from react-server.

Yep!

Just hand the server and the (compiled) routes to the middleware function exported by react-server:

const express = require("express");
const rs      = require("react-server");
const routes  = require("./routes"); // Compiled by `react-server-cli`.

const server  = express();

rs.middleware(server, routes);

from react-server.

Use react-server-cli --compile-only and run the build it produces in a custom production server. We need some documentation on how to do that.

You're going to want --production on there as well. Also, there's a section of react-server-cli's doc that addresses how to use it in production.

You are right that it doesn't cover server clustering, beacons, or logging, but I think it's the best answer we have right now, and for many sites it'll be a reasonable answer.

from react-server.

Thanks @aickin!

from react-server.

@gigabo Thanks, very thoughtful answer! This is arguably the easiest way to scaffold a react app with ssr, very promising!

Alright, so ssr would not work in production as of yet? Rather use the client side code splitting that react-server-cli outputs? This I have already set up in my production but will definitely use this once sir works in production, get it up and great work! I'll be watching closely!

from react-server.

Closing this in favour of #188

Also, If you don't mind me asking, will react-server work with an existing express server without the use of react-server-cli, aside from compiling?

from react-server.