Synergy of .NET Core With React: A Winning Combination for Web App Development

With a wealth of technologies available in the web development landscape, choosing the most suitable one can improve your application’s performance, scalability, security, and UX.

Two such technologies that have made notable advancements in web development are .NET Core and React. According to W3Techs, React is used by 4.1% of all websites, while .NET Core is used by 2.5% of them.

While these web development technologies provide substantial benefits to enterprises, they are not 100% perfect, much like any other technology.

But as luminaries in web development, you can drop the uncertainty of technology loopholes by leveraging the blend of both .NET Core and React. Their synergy can help bolster your web development process, expanding the capabilities and functionalities of your web solution.

Let’s deep dive to understand how the synergy of .NET Core and React is empowering businesses and the steps to leverage them together.

The Synergy Between .NET Core and React: An Emerging Development Trend to Look For

The combination of React with .NET Core is an emerging trend that unites .NET Core’s server-side prowess with React’s user interface dynamism, delivering high-performing web solutions.

Moreover, despite the added server code handling, you can embrace this combo, especially for feature-rich Create React App (CRA) projects. Here, .NET Core will serve as a web API, and React as UI, jointly tackling key development aspects, enabling unified hosting, reduced development time, and flexibility. With this compelling synergy, you can also expedite project development, without compromising quality.

Combining .NET Core and React: The Sure-Fire Checklist

The .NET Core with React template offers a seamless foundation for .NET Core apps with a robust client-side UI powered by React and Create React App (CRA). Additionally, you can combine a .NET Core web API and a CRA React UI in one project for streamlined hosting and deployment. Let’s take a look at the most essential steps to combine them:

1. Create an App: You can begin to create a new app using the dotnet new react command. You can further run this app either through Visual Studio or .NET Core CLI. The project template will combine the .NET Core app and the React app. Here, .NET Core will handle the data access, authorization, and server-side back-end tasks, while React in the ClientApp subdirectory will manage UI aspects.

2. Add Pages, Images, Styles, and Modules: Next, you can enhance the project by incorporating pages, images, styles, modules, etc. Within the ClientApp directory lies a conventional Create React App (CRA) structure that enables seamless integration of these elements. Although subtle distinctions exist between the React app created through this template and the one originating from CRA itself, the underlying capabilities remain consistent. However, the created app contains a Bootstrap-powered layout, ensuring a responsive design, and featuring a rudimentary routing example, streamlining navigation.

3. Install NPM Packages: To install third-party npm packages efficiently, you can utilize a command prompt within the ClientApp subdirectory. For instance:

cd ClientApp
npm install

These packages will enable you to add functionality, streamline development, and solve common programming challenges in your application.

4. Publish and Deploy: During development, the application will operate in a mode tailored to your convenience. Here, the source maps will include JavaScript bundles for effective debugging, enabling you to view the original source code. Furthermore, the app monitors will change to JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files, automatically recompiling and reloading when modifications are detected.

In production, the app will serve an optimized version for performance automatically. So, upon publishing, a minified and transpiled build of your client-side code will be generated. Notably, the production build wouldn’t mandate Node.js installation on the server.

Furthermore, you can use the standard .NET Core hosting and deployment techniques to manage this process.

5. Run CRA Server Independently: By default, your project will initiate its own background CRA development server when the .NET Core app will enter the development mode. This will further streamline the process by eliminating the need for manual server initiation.

However, there’s a downside to this setup. When you modify the C# code and your .NET Core app restarts, the CRA server will also restart, requiring a few seconds to resume. To avoid this delay, you can launch the CRA server externally via a command prompt in the ClientApp subdirectory. Subsequently, when starting your .NET Core app, the manually initiated CRA server will be utilized, resulting in faster start and restart times. This way, your React app won’t be required to rebuild each time.

Enhance Your Development Dynamics With .NET Core and React

1. Direct Process: Combining .NET Core and React is a simple process. This Visual Studio template will enable the creation of software using a .NET Core backend and a React frontend. You can also integrate the centralized Redux library into the template, adding to the convenience.

2. Enhanced Accessibility: As the combination project autonomously initializes a CRA development server in the background, this eliminates the need for manual server initiation. This automation further streamlines development and accelerates time-to-server accessibility.

3. Ease of Visual Editing: Employing .NET Core alongside React provides a powerful alternative, ensuring both frontend and backend development quality. Additionally, React’s dedicated template for .NET Core projects simplifies the process, and Visual Studio’s inclusive tools enhance ease of use.

4. Robustness and Trustworthiness: React’s strength is highlighted by its usage at Facebook, where new versions undergo extensive internal testing. This further validates React’s excellence and reliability for external projects, assuring a solid foundation for your application.

5. Backward Compatibility: React is mindful of backward compatibility, with breaking changes carefully considered and announced well in advance. This approach can minimize disruption and provide you time to adapt to necessary changes.

6. Expansive Ecosystem: React facilitates a vast and thriving ecosystem. Its popularity drives the creation of numerous libraries for diverse needs, such as UI components, state management, and styling. Not just this, but its active online communities provide prompt assistance when challenges arise.

7. Leveraging TypeScript for Static Typing: The .NET Core ecosystem thrives on strongly typed code for early issue detection, and editor productivity features. Furthermore, with React, TypeScript steps in to provide robust and flexible type systems, ensuring a seamless development experience.

The Bottom Line

Crafting an exceptional app necessitates the fusion of multiple remarkable technologies. When you’ll combine React and .NET Core, productive Create React App (CRA) and other advancements will come to fruition.

However, this task is more intricate than it appears. It demands an in-depth knowledge of both technologies and their optimal applications. Here, Team Grazitti’s prowess with services like app development, third-party integration, custom .NET Core framework, migration, etc., can assist you to create efficient applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Ques 1. Does React work well with .Net Core?
Ans: Yes, React works exceptionally well with .Net Core, offering a robust solution for building dynamic and responsive web applications. By combining React’s efficient UI components with .Net Core’s scalable backend, developers can create powerful, full-stack web applications with streamlined development workflows and high performance.

Ques 2. How to integrate .NET Core with React?
Ans: Integrating .NET Core with React involves using the dotnet new react command to create a unified app that leverages .NET Core for backend tasks and React for the UI. This setup facilitates seamless development, easy npm package integration, and efficient deployment with optimized performance for production.

Ques 3. Which is better with .Net Core, Angular or React?
Ans: Choosing between Angular and React with .NET Core depends on project requirements and developer preference. Angular provides a comprehensive framework with strong typing and structure, ideal for large-scale projects. On the other hand, React provides more flexibility and a component-based architecture, favoring rapid development and smoother integration for dynamic UIs.

Ques 4. How do businesses add React to an existing .NET Core project?
Ans: To add React to an existing .NET Core project, businesses can insert a DOM container in their HTML. Then, add script tags for React and their React component code before the closing tag. Then, they can create a React component in a JS file and render it within the specified DOM container.

Ques 5. How can you ensure optimal performance when integrating React with a .NET Core backend for Single-Page Applications (SPAs)?
Ans: To optimize performance in React and .NET Core SPAs, businesses or developers can utilize server-side rendering for faster initial load, employ efficient data fetching strategies like GraphQL, leverage caching, minimize bundle sizes with code splitting, and implement lazy loading for components and routes.

Ready to Optimize Your Web Application’s Efficiency and Scalability With the Synergy of .NET Core and React? Let’s Talk!