What Is Server-Side Rendering?
Server-side rendering (SSR) generates a page's full HTML on the server for each request, so the browser receives complete, visible markup immediately rather...
Published October 8, 2026
Server-side rendering (SSR) generates a page's full HTML on the server for each request, so the browser receives complete, visible markup immediately rather than an empty shell to be filled in by JavaScript.
Why it exists
- JavaScript-heavy single-page applications historically sent a nearly empty HTML file, delaying meaningful content until JavaScript downloaded, ran, and rendered the page
- This delay hurts both perceived load speed and how easily search engine crawlers see the page's actual content
How to apply it
- Frameworks like Next.js and Nuxt provide SSR out of the box, rendering React/Vue components to HTML on the server for each request
- SSR adds server load per request compared to serving pre-built static files, since rendering happens dynamically each time
FAQ
Is SSR the same as static site generation?
No — SSR renders HTML fresh on each request; static generation renders HTML once at build time and serves the same file to everyone, which is faster but can't reflect per-request data.