Server-Side Rendering (SSR) vs Client-Side Rendering (CSR): Understanding the Differences

Matheshyogeswaran
4 min readOct 7, 2024

Hello everyone! When building web applications, one key decision developers face is how to render the content: should it be rendered on the server or the client? The choice between Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Client-Side Rendering (CSR) can significantly impact the performance, SEO, and user experience of your application.

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In this article, we’ll break down the differences between SSR and CSR, discuss their use cases, and help you decide which one is best suited for your project.

Table of Contents

· What is SSR (Server-Side Rendering)?

· What is CSR (Client-Side Rendering)?

· Differences between SSR and CSR

· Benefits of SSR

· Benefits of CSR

· SEO and Performance in SSR vs CSR

· Which One to Choose?

· Conclusion

What is SSR (Server-Side Rendering)?

  • Definition: In SSR, the server generates the complete HTML for a webpage and sends it to the browser. This means the browser receives a fully rendered page, including the content, from the start.

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Matheshyogeswaran

Undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa, Trainee Software Engineer, and tech enthusiast exploring cloud computing and software development.