Does react js need backend server site application to run?

Hi, I am new to web development. i am currently learning about React js. but one thing I noticed that i have to use npm to run react. just like when i used node js to create a server-side application.

what i want to know is, does react need any other backend server-side language to run? such as express js…

again, i am new to react js, i am still learning about it. so any kind of help will be appreciated

React is a UI library. You don’t need any specific back-end in order to run it.

As you can see in the official docs you can add react to any webpage with even just some CDN tags, and optionally even Babel watching your file for JSX.

Alternatively you can set up a new new react app, with all the modern toolchains, it only require Node to be installed on your computer.


The serving part is totally up to you.
Hope this helps :slight_smile:

1 Like

React is a library for writing user interfaces, it doesn’t have any opinion about what the interface is for. If the thing is something that needs data stored somewhere remotely, ie not on the user’s computer, then yes, otherwise no

1 Like

thank you sooo much, both of you…

Sorry, meant to that the backend server is up to you (as @Marmiz said) but just to be clear, it doesn’t have to be something you write — for a helluva lot of usecases there will be a service you can use for it; databases, media stores, cms’ and a million and one other things, a huge number of which have free tiers that you can use. You can then sign up for that service and just code the front end, not worry about any server side stuff, which is what you really want if you’re just learning.