Static Site Generation (SSG), also referred to as pre-rendering, is another popular technique for building fast websites. Cons It can become complex. Yadda, yadda. By using frameworks like Next.js or Gatsby, you can code a web app in React that fetches all the needed data for the website at build time. However, with a server-side rendered approach, the server generates the HTML on each request, allowing you to customize the page based on the user without client-side JavaScript but requiring a server. Although the sites first load might be slow, once rendered, other requested pages served instantaneously. An overall slow page rendering. Lets look at how to create a static site using these two generators. Everything TypeScript, with code walkthroughs and examples. Server-side rendering to the rescue! Single Page Applications (SPAs) started to pop-up pages that were fully client-side rendered and did not need any round trips to the server, only to fetch data through AJAX. This means that the server must be able to execute Node.js to generate the pages. To use VuePress, you first have to install it: Once the installation process is done, you can run the following command in your command-line interface (CLI): Here, weve created a folder for our VuePress application, added a README.md file with # Hello VuePress as its only content, and, finally, started up the server. The pages are instantly ready to be displayed on the users browser. Not ideal if the content is highly dynamic or user-specific. Possible solutions are to make use of a static-site generator or server-side rendering (SSR). It also contains two style tags, one for styling this page and the other for global styling of the app. Perhaps reflecting the growing popularity of the Jamstack category and its evolution to deliver sites of larger and larger sizes, Next.js has focused much effort on a hybrid of static site generation (SSG) and server side rendering (SSR) models, along with support for incremental regeneration. We recommend using Static Generation over Server-side Rendering for performance reasons. They are more secure when compared to dynamic websites. You might be better off with static site generation. Every processing is done on the server every single time a request comes in, hence the name Server-Side Rendering. Pros Easy to maintain codebase. Because the JavaScript is rendered server-side, the users device has little bearing on the loading time of the page, making for better performance. In the beginning, there were only static web pages. This can be mitigated by employing the concept of Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR), supported by Next.js. SSR implies that the rendering is happening in response to a request. CSR uses JavaScript. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. Great for static sites. What are the benefits of tracking solved bugs? . In this case, Ive gone ahead with naming it Page-2.md and added the following to the file: Now, if you navigate to /page-2 in the browser, you should see this: Server-side rendering (SSR) is the process of rendering web pages on a server and passing them to the browser (client-side), instead of rendering them in the browser. This component handles the layout of pages nested inside it. SSR generates the static HTML markup on the server so that the browser gets a fully rendered HTML page. The finished pages are then uploaded onto a server and are waiting for requests to fetch them. Basically, this movement encourages people to use static websites that dont use servers at all, making the hosting cheaper, and the application more resilient with no downtime. You generate the full site once using raw data (such as Markdown files) and templates. NextJS 9.3 Next-gen Static Site Generation (SSG) NextJS 3 . Peer Review Contributions by: Peter Kayere. Youre good to go! If the servers output for a page is always the same, why generate the output at every request? It is crucial to understand that in order to have server side rendering of the UI, we must have a server in place. NextJs is a framework to build a full-stack application with features such as server-side rendering using React framework. He also loves interacting with CMS, such as WordPress. As Googles web crawlers read and indexed websites (so your web page can be listed on Google), we were concerned that these robots would not pick up HTML that was not yet rendered. A static site generator generates a website to completely static HTML files, pre-built without any calls to the database or external data sources and server-side processing. With Server-side Rendering (SSR), Next.js pre-renders the page into HTML on the server on every request. Every file in this folder is turned into a route, and so our landing page will be controlled by the index.vue file. In this article. Assume you now want to click the link on this rendered home page and load the blog.html mark-up as shown below. I inspected the built public folder of a built Gatsby project and noticed that none of the React components were actually turned into html (regardless of whether they depended on user interaction). The pages are rendered during the build-up phase. These server side technologies let us dynamically build the HTML that was sent to the client. SSR is one of the commonly used rendering solutions. Client apps: Static web apps are commonly built using libraries and frameworks like Angular, React, Svelte, Vue, or Blazor where server-side rendering is not required. JavaScript intercepts these requests. Were a bit more relaxed now, as most of the web crawlers and indexers are executing the JavaScript needed for client-side rendering. No, it's different: in NetlifyCMS you edit the content in a form and you have the preview on the side. On the other hand, Static-Site Generation uses the same concept on templates to automatically generate the pages. Are dynamic routes in Next.js rendered server-side or client-side? Modern-day tools let us do this extremely easily. Next.js features: Server-Side Rendering (SSR) Static exporting (SSG) Pre-rendering Automatic build size optimization :). You shouldnt run a virtual machine or Kubernetes pods to host your fully client-side rendered front end project. You can also use Client-side data fetching along with Static Generation or Server-side . Static-Site Generator automates the process of having to code HTML pages manually. And 3 Ways to Find the Best One, The Benefits of Server Side Rendering Over Client Side Rendering, Content and pages are generated at build time, Content and pages are generated per request, Fewer API calls, because it only makes them at build time, Makes API calls each time a new page is visited. This goes hand in hand if your application has a complex UI and a lot of dynamic content that doesnt necessarily depend on SEO. Assume you have an imaginary server with an HTTP address test.com, and you are hosting the following index.html document as the main page. The browser is constantly making requests to the server for every new page, and each request. All of the HTML was now generated on the client side. Find me at adamkiss.net. In my experience, the major reasons for looking towards SSG rather than any form of active server (SSR, Wordpress, Wiki's, etc.) Features 100% React (and friends!) ", and even authentication on SSG websites it needs api calls to server to sign up or sign in or fetching user data. Server Side Rendering vs. Static Site Generation vs Client Side Rendering Today, websites are much like applications. Static-Site Generator automates the process of having to code HTML pages manually. They apply data and content to templates, and generate a view of a page which can be served to the visitors of a site. It normally contains virtually no visible content. Server-side rendering (SSR), is the ability of an application to generate the web page on the server instead of only rendering it in the browser. We have to import it first. Yet another buzzword, referring to a movement in technology and web development. Finally, exactly what html+css+js is created upon Static Rendering with Client Components? Fortunately, its clear that there are a few winners, namely React and Vue, which are incredibly popular. Next.js has a newer, somewhat experimental implementation for components that are only rendered on the server, resulting in no JS payload for them to be run on the client. Static Site Generation (SSG) means building and rendering components and routes at build . Server-Side Rendering (SSR) Gatsby is historically known as a static site generator enhanced with React Hydration . An example would be a large e-commerce or social media platform. Azure Static Web Apps is a service that automatically builds and deploys full stack web apps to Azure from a code repository. The most common use case for server-side rendering is to handle the initial render when a user (or search engine crawler) first requests our app. Search engine robots crawl and index an HTML file page first. After a period converting Wordpress sites to Gatsby with Wordpress REST and Admin, we decided to build our "React Bricks" CMS (based on React Components) to avoid Wordpress altogether. In short, more interaction is needed on the users end. VuePress is a static-site generator powered by Vue.js, vue-router, and webpack. In your index.js file, add a link to this new page we just created: Here, weve imported the same components that were used in the newPage.js file, and they perform the same function in this file. Then, dynamic rendering and templating engines happened. do we can make api calls on run time or not because you said "Since you call the APIs only at build time" A great use case of Client-Side Rendering is a single-page application (SPA). For one, people started to get concerned about SEO search engine optimization. In a CMS case, content is stored in the CMS databases, and when the user requests the page, the server queries this content from this database, fills it in a template that fits this web content, generates the requested page, and serves it to the user on the browser. In this case, Vue.js will take full control of this page. NOTE: I created a CMS with Visual editing for React, called React Bricks, which works with every strategy (SSG with Next.js and soon Gatsby, SSR or ISR with Next.js) There are a few great technologies that make Jamstack feasible. Thus they are mutually exclusive, though both can happen in the same application. The approach is also good for applications that tailor content according to who is viewing it and that store user data such as email addresses and user preferences, while also attending to SEO. Staging Ground Beta 1 Recap, and Reviewers needed for Beta 2, ReactJS server-side rendering vs client-side rendering. Aren't you guys trying to do the same? Static Site Generation (SSG): render at build time. Not all components even produce elements to render. Purely static HTML documents were sent to the client. What do I look for? So-called front-end fatigue started to get real, with new libraries and frameworks all over the place. You need a server to run the rendering on this can get expensive. You do need that for SSR, though. It is the best when it comes to search engine optimization. Is there documented evidence that George Kennan opposed the establishment of NATO? To create a Nuxt.js app, run the following command in your CLI: This will prompt you to select a name, along with some other options. As in the previous diagram, browsers send HTTP requests to the server, then the server processes the requests . Tips on front-end & UX, delivered weekly in your inbox. They were static web pages with no dynamic elements. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. It is taking a backseat and giving way to many advanced rendering technologies. This will be an interesting story, as well do a full round trip through these technologies and approaches. Timi. We have prepared starters for both Gatsby and Next.js. Calling Next.js a static site generator is a bit misleading. This component is added by default to the Gatsby application; it helps with lazy loading images and serving lower file sizes. This approach fits well when you have a large number of users accessing your web content. Some rendering methods are faster to render, others are better for SEO or security, and some have faster page transitions once loaded. This slows down search engine robots as they crawl on a website. React doesn't have to run on their computer. Static sites use server-side rendering to serve pre-built HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to a web browser. Server-side rendering started to be a thing again. In this case, a link, a title, and a paragraph. So, lets add a new page (hello.vue) to our application: If you open localhost:3000/hello, you should see the new page in the browser. This is effectively SSR/SSG but where some components are never hydrated. | by Prashant Ram | Medium 500. To use this generator, you first have to install it using npm: This will install Gatsby globally on your machine. Well look at what static generation is, as well as frameworks that help us create static-generated sites, such as Gatsby and VuePress. Server-side rendering is also better for SEO because it removes the burden of . Next.js is a React framework that enables you to build static websites, server-side rendered applications, and the like. The server serves up the static files (CSS and HTML) to the clients browser on the clients first request for the website. Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow! You will have certain use cases when one or the other is more appropriate. You can choose to just do a simple AJAX request to refetch potentially stale data but otherwise have a static website. Gatsby had created an html file for each page, but the of each of those was still React components defined in JS, expecting to be turned into html by React on the client, run-time. This Link component is how we add links to pages created in a Next.js application. The user then sees the content on screen. Check memory usage of process which exits immediately. Try to learn more about how to build both in order to fully understand the differences between them. The output is a bunch of static files, including the HTML file itself and assets like JavaScript and CSS. That's just what server-side rendering is! Faster page loads Here are some useful links to help you get started in no time. Well start with a bit of history, then get into some real-world examples and technologies like Next.js and Gatsby. And we know the differences between them. If we go back to our home page and click on this link, it would take us to our /hello page. Were also exporting a Home function that returns JSX containing our pages content. The static site generator comes along and renders out this bundle at build time. Switch between static-site generation or on-demand server rendering. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site status, or find something interesting to read. These new advanced rendering technologies include Client-Side Rendering (CSR), Server-Side Rendering (SSR), and Static-Site Generation (Pre-rendering). . Unfortunately, rendering the whole web page client side also brought a whole other set of potential problems. SSG - Static Site Generator. This article aims to help you grasp the different options for rendering in the Jamstack and make the best choices throughout your application. Server-side rendering means using a server to generate HTML from JavaScript modules in response to a URL request. . With Static Rendering, both Server and Client Components can be prerendered on the server at build time. Update it with the following: Your application should be running on localhost:3000, and you should see this: We can see that the page displays the content that we added to index.vue. Asynchronous data, new data, new pages, new front-end components. This increases the likelihood of poor user experience, and users can leave your site when they get frustrated waiting for the CSR to fully render the website. Is there a non trivial smooth function that has uncountably many roots? Server side rendering (SSR) and Static Site Generation (SSG) are two ways to create websites using a modern front-end stack (getting content from a server API) while preserving SEO friendliness and perceived performance. With SSR, the website pages are generated at runtime on the server. The greatest difference between a static site generator and a traditional web application stack, is that instead of waiting until a page is requested and then generating its . The server returns a response to the browser with the requested content. In this case, each page will load from the data history as fetched by the frameworks API. So, its dynamic, isnt it? 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