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News

🚀 React on Rails v16.0 Released! Major modernization with ESM support, enhanced React Server Components, and streamlined configuration.

• ESM-only package: Modern module system with better tree-shaking and performance
• React Server Components: Improved rendering flow and new RSCRoute component for seamless SSR
• Performance improvements: New async loading strategies and optimized bundle generation
• Webpacker removal: Streamlined for Shakapacker-only support (>= 6.0)
• React on Rails Pro supports the latest features of React 18, including React Server Components and streaming. Contact Justin Gordon for more information.
• ShakaCode now maintains the official successor to rails/webpacker, shakapacker.

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These are the docs for React on Rails 16. To see the older docs and code: v14, v13, v12, and v11.

About

React on Rails integrates Rails with (server rendering of) React.

This project is maintained by ShakaCode.

ShakaCode Upgrade Support

ShakaCode focuses on helping Ruby on Rails teams better use React and Webpack. We can upgrade your project and improve your development and customer experiences, allowing you to focus on building new features or fixing bugs instead.

For an overview of working with us, see our Client Engagement Model article and how we bill for time.

We also specialize in helping development teams lower infrastructure and CI costs. Check out our project Control Plane Flow, which can allow you to get the ease of Heroku with the power of Kubernetes and big cost savings.

If you think ShakaCode can help your project, click here to book a call with Justin Gordon, the creator of React on Rails.

Upgrading React on Rails

After upgrading to a new major version, run the generator to get latest defaults:

rails generate react_on_rails:install

Important: Review changes carefully before applying to avoid overwriting custom configurations. The generator updates:

• bin/dev (improved development workflow)
• webpack configurations
• shakapacker.yml settings
• other configuration files

Troubleshooting Setup Issues

If you encounter issues during installation or after upgrading, use the doctor command to diagnose your setup:

rake react_on_rails:doctor

The doctor command checks your environment, dependencies, and configuration files to identify potential issues. Use VERBOSE=true rake react_on_rails:doctor for detailed output.

For detailed upgrade instructions, see upgrade guide documentation.

React on Rails Pro

Some features of React on Rails regarding performance require a React on Rails Pro subscription.

Note: the subscription price is free for evaluation and non-production use.

Notable new features include:

• React Server Components
• Streaming SSR
• Loadable Components
• Code Splitting with React Router

React on Rails Pro is the best way to optimize your Webpack setup for React on Rails, including code splitting with React Router and loadable-components with server-side rendering for SEO and hot-reloading for developers.

We did this for Popmenu, lowering Heroku costs 20-25% while getting a 73% decrease in average response times. Several years later, Popmenu serves tens of millions of SSR requests daily with React on Rails Pro.

If you're interested, read more about React on Rails Pro and book a call.

Documentation

See the documentation at shakacode.com/react-on-rails/docs and React on Rails Pro.

Project Objective

To provide a high-performance framework for integrating Ruby on Rails with React, especially regarding React Server-Side Rendering for better SEO and improved performance.

Features and Why React on Rails?

Given that shakacode/shakapacker gem already provides basic React integration, why would you use "React on Rails"?

1. Modern ESM-only package with optimized tree-shaking for smaller bundle sizes and better performance.
2. Advanced loading strategies with sync, async, and defer options for optimal performance based on your needs.
3. Automatic configuration of what bundles are added to the page based on what React components are on the page. This results in faster browser loading time via smaller bundle sizes.
4. Keep up with the latest changes in different versions of React. React 18+ is fully supported with enhanced React Server Components.
5. Easy prop passing directly from your Rails view to your React components rather than having your Rails view load and then make a separate request to your API. Tight integration with shakapacker.
6. Server-Side Rendering (SSR) with enhanced React Server Components support, often used for SEO crawler indexing and UX performance.
7. Automated optimized entry-point creation and bundle inclusion when placing a component on a page. With this feature, you no longer need to configure javascript_pack_tags and stylesheet_pack_tags on your layouts based on what's shown. "It just works!"
8. Redux and React Router integration with server-side-rendering.
9. Internationalization (I18n) and (localization) support.
10. Supportive community. This web search shows how live public sites are using React on Rails.
11. ReScript Support.

See Rails/Shakapacker React Integration Options for comparisons to other gems.

Online demo

• See the react-webpack-rails-tutorial for an example of a live implementation and code.
• A deployed version of the project spec/dummy, which demonstrates several uses of react_on_rails, will soon be available on Control Plane through this link

ShakaCode Forum Premium Content

Requires creating a free account.

• How to use different versions of a file for client and server rendering
• How to conditionally render server side based on the device type

Prerequisites

• Ruby on Rails >= 5
• Shakapacker >= 6.0 (Webpacker is no longer supported as of v16)
• Ruby >= 3.2 (CI tested: 3.2 - 3.4)
• Node.js >= 20 (CI tested: 20 - 22)
• A JavaScript package manager (npm, yarn, pnpm, or bun)

Support

• Click to join React + Rails Slack.

• Subscribe for announcements of new releases of React on Rails and of our latest blog articles and tutorials.

• Discussions: Post your questions regarding React on Rails

• forum.shakacode.com: Other discussions

• @railsonmaui on Twitter

• See NEWS.md for more notes over time.

• See Projects using and KUDOS for React on Rails. Please submit yours! Please edit either page or email us and we'll add your info. We also love stars as it helps us attract new users and contributors.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. To get started, see Contributing and the list of help wanted issues.

Work with Us

ShakaCode is hiring passionate software engineers to work on our projects, including HiChee!

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Supporters

The following companies support our open-source projects, and ShakaCode uses their products!