Next.js Rendering Environments

Rendering Environments

• Rendering is the process of converting code into a visual and interactive display that users can view and interact with within a web browser.
• The rendering process affects user experience, web app performance, and search engine visibility.
• There are two primary rendering environments: server-side rendering (SSR) and client-side rendering (CSR).
• A well-optimized web application utilizes a combination of both SSR and CSR.

Client-Side Rendering

• Client-side rendering (CSR) assembles the webpage mainly on the client's browser.
• CSR is ideal for components with state or many user interactions like buttons and form fields.
• CSR enables a highly interactive, seamless, and dynamic user experience.
• In Next.js, client-side rendering can be implemented explicitly through client components.
• Client components can be defined with a 'use client' directive, specifying that the component and its children should be rendered on the client side.

Server-Side Rendering

• Server-side rendering (SSR) assembles the webpage mainly on the server.
• SSR is ideal for web applications that need a lot of data fetching, search engine optimization (SEO), and speed.
• SSR offloads the rendering to the server, reducing the load on the client's hardware.
• By default, Next.js renders components on the server side.
• Next.js offers three distinct approaches to server-side rendering: static rendering, dynamic rendering, and streaming.

Adding Interactivity with Hydration

• Hydration involves attaching event handlers and linking the React components to their HTML counterparts.
• Hydration is the process of making the webpage fully interactive after the server-sent HTML is loaded on the client's browser.
• During hydration, React performs reconciliation, comparing the result from rendering components on the client side with the result from rendering on the server.
• After hydration, the webpage becomes fully interactive, and updates to the page are handled entirely on the client side.
• Next.js applications typically represent a blend of different rendering techniques, leveraging server- and client-side strengths to deliver an optimal user experience.