Web Performance Fundamentals
A Frontend Developer’s Guide to Profile and Optimize React Web Apps
Get the practical tools and techniques you need to make your React apps faster, smoother, and more efficient.
This is definitely next level. This book expands the view and looks at the holistic approach, focusing on the right questions, areas, and considerations. I thought I knew how to answer the 'How the web works' interview question. This book brought it to a completely new level of understanding of behind-the-scenes browser rendering magic!
The book has to be a must-read for internet technology and web apps courses students in universities, as well as practicing professionals.
Why would I read it?
About the Book
Throughout the book, you'll follow a clear, hands-on path that mirrors the real performance journey of a modern web app. We'll start by understanding why speed matters (and how to measure it), then explore initial-load performance and why it's so critical for a first impression. In the process, we'll turn performance Flame Graphs from an incomprehensible mess into relaxed bedtime reading, gain a deep understanding of every render pattern (CSR, SSR, RSC, etc.), and learn how to measure the impact of each one.
The bundle-size investigation will let you play detective, discovering the different uses of Suspense will make you an explorer, and uncovering the purpose of React Server Components will set you on an adventurer's path - with performance treasures as your reward.
We'll finish with a solid understanding of interaction performance, revisit the role re-renders play in it, and take a look at the React Compiler.
All of this while tinkering with a complex, multi-page study project and experimenting with various build tools and frameworks (Vite, TanStack, and Next.js).
- 1. Hello and Welcome!
- 2. Let's Talk About Performance
- 3. Intro to Initial Load Performance
- 4. Client-side Rendering and Flame Graphs
- 5. SPAs and Introducing INP
- 6. Intro to Rendering on the Server (SSR)
- 7. Bundle Size and What to Do About It
- 8. Intro to Lazy Loading and Suspense
- 9. Advanced Lazy Loading
- 10. Data Fetching and React Server Components
- 11. Interaction Performance
- 12. Re-renders Refresher
- 13. React Compiler
- 14. Final Thoughts
Buy eBook Now
Master web performance and become the go-to expert on your team
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- PDF and ePub formats
- 350+ pages of in-depth, practical content
- Access to the GitHub study project
Have any questions?
Frequently Asked Questions
I'm new to React. Is this book a good fit for me?
If you're still learning the basics of React, this book might be a bit too advanced for you right now. It's written for developers who are comfortable navigating a React codebase, have a solid understanding of core React concepts, and want to deepen their skills by exploring the specifics of web performance.
That said, much of the book isn't React-specific. About two-thirds of it covers general web performance topics that apply to any web app, regardless of the framework. So if you're comfortable with the basics of web development and want to learn more about performance, you'll still find it useful.
Can I read the book on my Kindle?
Absolutely! The book is in epub format, which Kindle supports. You can use Amazon's "Send to Kindle" service to upload it to any of your Kindle devices.
Do you support Purchasing Power Parity or regional discounts?
If you live in a country with low purchasing power, or are just experiencing financial hardship, and the book is too expensive for you, you can use the code PARITY20 during checkout to get a 20% discount. This offer is only available for the e-book purchased through the website.
Can I share the book with my friends and coworkers?
The book license is for one person only. I would ask you to respect that and not distribute it to others. Please send a request to [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.
What is your refund policy?
If you don't like the book and want a refund, please send a request to [email protected] within 14 days of purchase.
I would appreciate it if you could provide the reason for the refund, but it's not mandatory.
What if I have more questions?
Drop me a message on [email protected] if you have more questions. I'll do my best to answer them.
G'day, I'm Nadia!
I've been a developer for almost 20 years now, working in all types of companies, from small startups to five years at Atlassian.
At Atlassian, I worked on everything frontend-related: from the UI components library (Atlaskit), through different product teams in Jira, to a few years on the Jira Frontend Platform team. That team was responsible for the architecture, builds, deploys, and best practices of Atlassian's largest frontend repository: Jira Frontend. The repo had more than a million lines of code and hundreds of engineers contributing at once. If you've ever wondered what dependency hell looks like at scale, I can tell you stories 😅.
After that, tired of big-tech life, I joined a small startup called Pyn as a Founding Engineer. That was the proper startup life: wearing multiple hats, shipping features fast, working across backend, frontend, and infra, making trade-offs with limited resources, and solving real customer problems.
Along the way, I've been writing deep dives and investigations in my blog DeveloperWay, mostly about React and performance, since frontend is still my primary focus. Writing naturally progressed to speaking at conferences around the world, trying myself as a YouTube influencer 😅, and even writing two books, both focused on React and performance: Advanced React and Web Performance Fundamentals.
Not to brag, but I've seen the Advanced React book described as "the missing React documentation", "the only React book you need", and even "React Bible." I'm pretty proud of that one, and I wrote Web Performance Fundamentals with the hope that it will become the go-to resource for every React developer who wants to understand frontend performance.