Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
Server-Side Rendering (SSR) is a technique where a web page's HTML is generated on the server for each request and sent fully formed to the browser, rather than being built up entirely by client-side JavaScript.
Definition
Server-Side Rendering (SSR) is a technique where a web page's HTML is generated on the server for each request and sent fully formed to the browser, rather than being built up entirely by client-side JavaScript.
Overview
Before the era of JavaScript-heavy Single Page Applications, nearly all websites were server-rendered by default. As frameworks like React and Angular moved rendering to the client, developers ran into slower perceived load times and weaker search-engine indexing, since crawlers and users had to wait for JavaScript to download and execute before seeing content. SSR re-introduces server-generated HTML for these frameworks, so the browser receives a fully rendered page immediately, then JavaScript 'hydrates' it into an interactive application (see Hydration). Modern meta-frameworks make SSR practical to adopt without giving up a component-based development model: Next.js for React, Nuxt.js for Vue, and SvelteKit for Svelte all run application code on the server per request, producing HTML that's sent to the browser alongside the JavaScript needed for interactivity. This differs from Static Site Generation (SSG), which pre-renders pages once at build time rather than on every request. SSR generally improves perceived performance (faster first paint) and SEO compared to pure client-side rendering, at the cost of added server infrastructure and complexity — every page request now involves server-side compute, and developers must be careful to write code that works correctly both on the server (no direct DOM access) and the client.
Key Concepts
- HTML generated per request on the server, not solely in the browser
- Improves first paint / perceived load time compared to pure client rendering
- Better default SEO since crawlers receive fully rendered HTML
- Followed by client-side hydration to attach interactivity
- Implemented by meta-frameworks like Next.js, Nuxt.js, and SvelteKit
- Requires server infrastructure capable of running application code per request
Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
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