For most React apps, SSG is by far the best option. With Next.js it’s easy to do and takes less effort than a client-side app with a separate backend. SSR React was a PITA initially 2-3 years ago, but it, libraries and the frameworks have come a long way.
Nobody is forcing you to use all the capabilities. You can still use it for client-side only if you want, but the efficiency of having both is perfect for me personally and our company.
frontend is already complex enough, there are many use cases do not need SSR at all, React used to be SPA first, now is SSR first(just like svelte), which means lots of unnecessary stuff to understand for SPA programmers. I came from vue-svelte-react, now Vue is the only one still does true SPA(SSR is opt-in), so, I am back to Vue and hope it won't change to SSR-first like the rest.
React is owned by Meta which cares more about SSR, similar to Svelte. Vue is not owned by any single company, that seems like a huge huge plus now.
It’s disappointing to me they’ve gone so hard on server side.
It feels like Facebook use it server side so they’ve lost interest in being purely client side.