SSR

A technique where web pages are rendered on the server before being sent to the browser. Improves initial page load performance, SEO, and user experience.

This hub gathers the blocks around server-side rendering: the meta-frameworks that render HTML on the server, the runtime pieces that make it fast, streaming and islands patterns, and the hydration strategies that decide how much JavaScript the client pays for.

Why it matters to an indie builder: SSR is how a JavaScript app becomes visible to search engines and fast on first paint, which converts directly into SEO and conversion. The modern menu is a spectrum, full SSR for dynamic product pages, static generation plus islands for content, streaming with partial hydration for the heavy middle, and choosing per route instead of per site is the whole game.

A realistic pattern: marketing and content statically generated with islands of interactivity, product routes server-rendered per request with session data, images and fonts optimized by the framework, hydration costs measured rather than assumed.

Trade-offs: server rendering reintroduces server concerns, caching, cold starts, state serialization, and every framework draws the boundaries differently. Compare the meta-framework blocks here on where each draws the static-dynamic line.