a React app on a fast network can download in as little as 100ms, but then take another 600ms to render... unless it's server-side rendered (then <= 250ms)

Our experiments demonstrate that slowing down the search results page by 100 to 400 milliseconds has a measurable impact on the number of searches per user from Google Research blog post "Speed Matters"

Google saw a 20% drop in revenue from an accidentally introduced 500ms delay. Greg Linden paraphrasing Marissa Mayer, Nov 2009

When you load a server-side rendered JavaScript app, you see the content immediately, before the JavaScript is even downloaded - it's what makes pages feel as if they are instantly loading.

Using XHR/AJAX? We automatically cache and preload AJAX calls so the "initial state" just works. If you have a more complicated setup, you can preload your state by saving to a special variable we serialize into the DOM called window.__PRELOADED_STATE__

Using React? We include your server-side rendered checksums for best possible client render performance. (version 0.14 and above)