…It Didn’t Feel Like React at First

Honestly, the first time I worked with Server Components, I felt like I had walked into a slightly different universe. The JSX was familiar, but the rules weren’t. Some components could run on the server, some couldn’t touch browser APIs, and suddenly I was thinking twice before dropping a simple hook into my file. It felt off — not wrong, just unfamiliar in a way that made me slow down.

But that discomfort didn’t last. The moment I rendered my first page without a pile of client-side state or nested effects, something clicked. It wasn’t just “React but faster.” It was a quieter kind of simplicity — a reminder that UI can be the result of data, not the result of juggling logic inside the browser. It felt like React was asking me to think, not to optimize.

When Rendering Stops Living in the Browser

What surprised me most wasn’t the API or the folder structure — it was the shift in responsibility. For years, everything I built in React assumed the browser was the final authority. Render here, hydrate here, update here. But with Server Components, that center of gravity moved. Suddenly the question wasn’t “How do I render this?” but “Does this even belong in the client at all?”

And when the answer was no, things got… lighter. Less JavaScript shipped. Fewer edge cases. Fewer effects used as band-aids. A component that previously needed a loading state and a client-side fetch simply didn’t anymore. It just rendered — because the server already knew what it needed. It felt like removing invisible weights from my process.

The Weird Comfort of Letting Go of Control

I’m used to having full control over rendering. Client-side frameworks almost train you to think that everything must run through your hands. But RSC pushed me into a different posture: trust the server a little more, trust the framework a little more, and focus on what actually makes the UI meaningful.

That doesn’t mean giving up. There are still footguns — mismatched boundaries, awkward waterfalls, unpredictable transitions. And yes, I’ve had moments where I stared at my screen thinking, “Why is this running on the server again?” But after a while, the friction becomes clarity: some components exist to compute, and some exist to interact. Mixing the two was always messy; now it simply has a name.

No Big Revolution — Just a Shift in How I Think

I don’t call myself an “RSC expert” or pretend I’ve mastered the new mental model. What I do feel is a quiet change in how I approach my work. My files feel smaller. My UI feels calmer. I’m asking better questions before writing code, like: “Does this really need interactivity?” or “Is this actually a client concern?”

Nothing dramatic. Just a slow, steady sense that frontend is becoming less about pushing JavaScript everywhere and more about putting logic where it naturally belongs. And maybe that’s enough of a shift on its own. Not a new framework, not a breakthrough — just a gentler, more thoughtful way to build the same screens we’ve always built.