The next step in building React applications is learning how server-side rendering works and what benefits it can give us. The universal applications are better for SEO, and they enable knowledge-sharing between the frontend and the backend. They can also improve the perceived speed of a web application, which usually leads to increased conversions. However, applying server-side rendering to a React application comes at a cost, and we should think carefully about whether we need it or not.

In this chapter, you will see how to set up a server-side rendered application, and by the end of the relevant sections, you will be able to build a universal application and understand the pros and the cons of the technique.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Understanding what a universal application is
• Figuring out the reasons why...