Organizing component architecture and structure in React

Jan 2, 2025

As React applications grow, keeping your component architecture clear and maintainable is essential. A well-structured codebase makes collaboration easier, reduces duplication, and improves developer experience — especially in teams or when building scalable design systems.

This post shares how I organize components and visual structure in React, based on current best practices, including recent patterns influenced by modern frameworks like Next.js, React Server Components (RSC), and design systems.

💡 Group by feature or domain

Rather than splitting everything into global folders like components/, hooks/, or utils/, I prefer grouping by feature or domain. This approach scales well and mirrors how users experience the app.

src/
├── dashboard/
│   ├── components/
│   ├── hooks/
│   ├── index.js
│   └── DashboardPage.jsx
├── settings/
│   └── ...
├── shared/
│   ├── components/
│   ├── utils/
│   └── theme/

📦 Presentational vs container components

Although hooks have blurred the line between UI and logic, separating presentational components (focused on visuals) from containers (focused on logic/state) is still helpful — especially for reusability and testing.

/components/
├── Button/
│   ├── Button.jsx
│   ├── Button.test.js
│   ├── button.module.css
│   └── index.js         # for clean imports
└── UserProfile/
    ├── UserProfile.jsx   # Presentational
    ├── useUserProfile.js # Data logic
    └── index.js

This setup supports co-location of styles, tests, and logic within the component’s folder.

🎨 Visual hierarchy and design consistency

Organize UI layers from the page level down to atoms:

Pages → Layouts → Sections → Components → Elements

Best practices:

• Use design tokens for consistent spacing, color, and typography.
• Build from a shared theme system (especially if using styled-components, Tailwind, or CSS Modules).
• Avoid deeply nested components when a flat composition will do.
• Define component boundaries based on reusability and context, not visuals alone.

⚙️ Modern Patterns in 2025

As of 2025, these trends continue to shape how teams structure React projects:

• React Server Components (RSC) via Next.js App Router encourages clear separation between server and client logic — keep non-interactive UI server-rendered when possible.
• Co-location of everything (styles, logic, stories, tests) is the norm.
• Feature-first or route-first structures scale better than global folders.
• Atomic Design principles are still useful for thinking in reusable parts, though not always implemented rigidly.