can your web site be pre-rendered or rendered on the fly? then do server side rendering - only send html to the client. if you need dynamic rendering - use static js - only for those parts. if you need everything to be dynamic rendered eg live push, multiplayer games etc do full js rendering but do not use static html! only css/js. i think the complexity comes from web devs familiar with server rendering tries to use the same paradigm with dynamic sites for example angular and react. you should do it more like a desktop app instead of web page. if it makes sense do the rendering in canvas instead of the dom.