Re:The absurd complexity of server-side rendering
by rodamaral on Wednesday April 20, 2022 @01:30AM
(#31093189)
SSR always means outputting the first html as seen from the user when the app is fully loaded and ready to be interacted with. A SPA usually starts with a minimal, blank html file and a huge JS file that mounts the DOM structure and then the user can see something. SSR does the exact same thing, but on the server. From the user perspective, SSR seems faster. From a SEO perspective, SSR is better because there's some initial content on the page.
If so then I think the term "server-side rendering" is somewhat confusing. Your server is "generating HTML", not 'rendering" it.
Rendering in my view means turning code (like HTML) into visual output.. So whether the server serves always the same HTML, or regenerates it for every request, or something in between, the client/browser still has to "render" that HTML into visual output.
True server-side rendering I would think should mean the server renders HTML into a gif or jpg which then gets shown in the browser.