React Server Components support without a framework

"When I started researching, I found that there are solutions outside of Next.js, but they were either incomplete or tied to specific tools like Vite or esbuild. The more I dug, the more I realized that what we really have is a pattern without a proper implementation. It reminded me of Flux back in the day-a pattern that introduced new ideas but lacked clear direction on how those ideas should fit into existing applications."

"One of the key ideas I kept coming back to was having two versions of my code. The whole point of the pattern is to blur the line between front-end and back-end-but technically, that line still exists and is quite strict. Early on, I assumed there must be a tool that automatically prepares components for both client and server usage. Since none existed, I decided to build my tool like that."

"It's a tool that splits your code into client and server versions, so you can run React Server Components without a framework. So, something that I'll run before anything else. It will produce a server and client version of my code. After that my build tool will prepare a client bundle based on the source in the client directory and my Node server will spin up the HTTP server using the files in the server directory."

The developer created Forket to enable React Server Components without migrating to Next.js. Existing solutions were incomplete or tied to specific tools, revealing a pattern lacking a general implementation. Forket is library-agnostic and operates before or alongside other toolchains. Forket produces separate client and server versions of the same codebase. The client directory feeds the build tool for bundling. The server directory is used by a Node HTTP server. The design embraces running two versions of components to blur frontend/backend boundaries while preserving the necessary technical separation and deployment paths.

Read at krasimirtsonev.com