so I am guessing the only way to tackle this would be

either

put a use client on my top most layout.tsx so that everything below it becomes a client component. But that means I cannot use Metadata and related stuff

OR

downgrade to below nextjs 13 and go ahead with pages router
is that right?

That's wrong, if you mark the root layout as client component, only that layout will be a client component, your pages, children layouts won't be a client component

ahh shit

so the only solution other than putting use client in each file is nextjs <13 ?

And you don't have to downgrade, you can still use Pages Router in Next.js 13

create your pages in pages/ instead of app/

but they will again be server components correct?

What do you mean? Server components only exist in App Router

In Pages Router, everything remains the same. No client component, server component, etc.

On the other hand, you can use Pages Router and App Router in the same project

oh wait, I think i misunderstood this concept, so only stuff in the app router is server component by default, which can be made client component by use client.

But in pages router nothing is server or client component by default, but other stuff like SSR stays as it is

Yep

"use client" has no effect in Pages Router, everything is the same as how it used to be

ahhh ok that makes things much more simpler.

also one more doubt, there is no news of pages router being deprecated or anything is there? 😅

It's not yet deprecated, but not going to have any new changes or features

i see ok, thanks a lot for your help