I'm trying to build a nextjs app and it's quite painful. It seems to be more and more focused on SSR, which I don't care about (looking for a static app that calls separate API endpoints). That would have been fine in the NextJS I remember from a few years ago, where static and SSR seemed equally viable, but I can't be bothered now. I'm going to try Tanstack Start.
99% of what you see with the word "server" vs "client" is actually orthogonal to SSR is that wasn't clear.
The React team (really Vercel + Shopify) decided to use the supremely misleading names "Server Component" and "Client Component" for two things that do not affect CSR vs SSR.
Even if you label the root of your app "use client" (thus opting out of all the new complexity around RSC and server actions), it's still getting rendered server side.