Ever wondered what React is REALLY doing when you write <Component />? 👀⚛️ I’ve been building a custom React renderer to explore React internals from the inside out. Not a toy “mini React”, but the part that connects React’s reconciliation to a non-DOM target (think canvas, terminal UI, WebGL, native, even docs/diagram generation). A few practical takeaways that surprised me: 🔁 Reconciliation is target-agnostic. React decides “what changed” in a generic way; the renderer decides “how to apply it”. 🧠 The host config is the contract. Implement createInstance / appendChild / commitUpdate and you’re basically teaching React how to “draw” in your environment. ⏱️ Scheduling + batching matter more than you think. If your renderer commits too eagerly, performance falls off a cliff. If you batch intelligently, you get smooth updates even with heavy trees. 🧩 Effects aren’t magic. They’re coordinated around commit phases; understanding that makes debugging “why did this run twice?” issues much less mysterious. Why this matters beyond curiosity: custom renderers unlock UI patterns and industry tooling—internal devtools, healthcare visualization, aerospace dashboards, HR workflow surfaces—without fighting the DOM. 🛠️🚀 What non-DOM target would you render React to? 🤔 #react #javascript #frontend #webdev #engineering
Kithinji Brian
2mo
Can't you use signals and then override useState() function. For the jsx, compile it to imperative dom instructions using babel. I did it for my own full stack framework, so you could pull it off.
Building custom renderers is intellectually fascinating. I get the appeal. But it also says something. We’re layering abstractions on top of abstractions to escape a DOM that, in 2026, is actually incredibly capable. Semantic HTML, modern CSS, progressive enhancement, Web Components. The platform matured. Quietly. Powerfully. If you need a custom renderer to avoid “fighting the DOM”, maybe the real question is not how to render React somewhere else. Maybe it’s why we left the Web in the first place. The standards already know how to draw.