django-webpack-loader VS reactivated

Django Webpack Loader

Check out https://github.com/django-webpack/django-webpack-loader

About one month ago i started having a lot of doubts on my frontend. At first, instead of decoupling frontend from backend, i decided to use a library called django-webpack-loader that lets me serve webpack from Django templates, so i created a Vue app and served it from Django (i used a simple index.html view). So at this point i basically have a SPA that instead of being decoupled from Django, it's served by Django.

You can do this with Django and nothing else easily or you can use a third party library called Django-Webpack-Loader.

In addition to what's already been said (completely separate frontend & backend; or do a CDN include), I've worked in a codebase that uses django-webpack-loader.

The biggest challenge to using Django with React IMO is getting the right blend of isomorphic rendering down. I don't want to go full SPA with Django as this defeats the purpose of Django IMO. Most parts of the site I want server-rendered, while in stateful parts I want React. So, let's say I have a site with 20 different React "apps" (i.e. stateful components) that I want to distribute amongst my various Django sections (Django "Apps" within the same project). And I want to do that with one webpackconfig. How do I tell my webpack where to put all those react bundles? The answer I've found is django-webpack-loader[1], however as you can see in the Issues section, one of the biggest limitations here is the inability to chunk React (and other issues).

Does anyone have a solution they like for this kind of isomporphic Django problem?

1. https://github.com/owais/django-webpack-loader

Though it's not in the main branch, I've POC-ed a lot of it and use it in production on this branch. You can... sort of see the ideas behind it. https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/pull/207

https://www.reactivated.io/documentation/deploying/ https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/blob/main/development/scripts/deploy.sh https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/blob/main/development/Dockerfile

Theoretically, the Dockerfile should "just work"™ with Render.com as well. Right now I focus on fly.io only because their free tier offers PostgreSQL without time limits. Render, I believe, only does so for a period of time.

See here: https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/blob/main/dev...

https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/blob/main/dev...

https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/blob/main/dev...

Shameless plug: If you want seamless SSR with Django logic, but React templates, check out my project at https://www.reactivated.io .

It's like HTMX but uses React, and the JS bits are rendered on the server. You can then hydrate on the client.

The Reactivated docs site itself uses the project: https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/tree/main/web...

Here's one https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/blob/main/website/client/templates/HomePage.tsx

You can use any React library with Reactivated. Here's an example from the site, using react-markdown just like you would anywhere else: https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated/blob/91d87e66c61c849895cabcc1ce07574111084c3a/reactivated.io/client/templates/Documentation.tsx

reactivated – Zero-configuration Django and React.

That's exactly what https://github.com/silviogutierrez/reactivated does. It's a work in progress and docs are coming.

But it's the best of both worlds: Django SSR using statically typed JSX.

See for example my blog or business sites (on profile). Both SSRed by Django using React templates.

Then when the client loads, it gracefully "attaches" for dynamic interactive behavior as needed.

By far the biggest pain point is having to run node and python on the server. So I'm working on the best way to do that.