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Itamar Tati
Itamar Tati

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What Is Server-Side Rendering (SSR) in Web Development?

Server-Side Rendering (SSR) is a technique where the server generates the complete HTML for a webpage and sends it to the browser.


How it works:

  1. Initial Request: When you visit an SSR site, the server processes the request and renders the HTML with all the necessary content.
  2. Complete Page: The browser receives the fully-rendered page, so users see the content almost immediately.
  3. Interactivity: Once the page is loaded, JavaScript takes over to enable interactivity.

Pros:

✅ Faster initial load since the browser gets a pre-rendered page.

✅ Better for SEO since search engines can easily crawl the content.


Cons:

❌ Can increase server load as rendering happens on the server for every request.

❌ Slower interactivity if the JavaScript takes time to load.

Frameworks like Next.js and Nuxt.js leverage SSR for performance and SEO benefits. SSR is especially useful for content-heavy or SEO-focused applications.

In short: SSR delivers fully-rendered pages quickly, making it ideal for SEO and user-first experiences! 🚀

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