PHP has as much client-side rendering as React SSR does.
I think the sleight of hand that is happening right now, and that gets people a little confused, is that React is shaping up to be this thing that handles both front and the backend where other solutions can't do that. Sure – but it does that by overloading and complicating what React once was (neither of which per-se negative, I think it's just an apt description of what is going on)
Where other solutions might have abstracted the frontend part into a thing with a different name (or not bother doing it at all) React chooses in a rather unprecedented move to call it all just... React (well, there's Remix and such, but alas). Which is fine, as long as you understand that this new "React" will now probably lead to "React Frontend Dev" and "React Backend Dev", because the work and the complexities that these rolls entail did not just disappear by rolling it into the same name.
It's not entirely clear if architecturally there are going to be more benefits than footguns, but I think it's cool that they are trying.
I think the sleight of hand that is happening right now, and that gets people a little confused, is that React is shaping up to be this thing that handles both front and the backend where other solutions can't do that. Sure – but it does that by overloading and complicating what React once was (neither of which per-se negative, I think it's just an apt description of what is going on)
Where other solutions might have abstracted the frontend part into a thing with a different name (or not bother doing it at all) React chooses in a rather unprecedented move to call it all just... React (well, there's Remix and such, but alas). Which is fine, as long as you understand that this new "React" will now probably lead to "React Frontend Dev" and "React Backend Dev", because the work and the complexities that these rolls entail did not just disappear by rolling it into the same name.
It's not entirely clear if architecturally there are going to be more benefits than footguns, but I think it's cool that they are trying.