Server rendering produces HTML during a request. Prerendering produces it in advance. Either can include important public text and links before browser JavaScript runs; the right choice depends on freshness and hosting requirements.
Use content freshness to choose a starting point
A documentation article that changes during a release can often be generated ahead of time. A page that needs fresh public data on each request may fit SSR better. A private interactive dashboard has different requirements from a public landing page. Decide per route rather than applying one approach to everything.
Make a small public route work end to end
Choose a route with a known heading and description. Configure your framework’s rendering workflow, deploy it, and fetch the URL directly. Check the response body and HTTP status. Then test a page that does not exist: a generic success response can hide broken routes.
- Include the main text and public navigation in the HTML.
- Check direct requests to nested routes.
- Confirm a missing route returns a meaningful 404.
- Keep the displayed content consistent after hydration.
Check the speed on your own host
SSR builds a response when someone requests a page; prerendering prepares it earlier. Caching can avoid rebuilding the same public response each time. Measure your live pages, including a first request and a repeat visit. Sharing one template across many URLs keeps the code manageable, but page count alone tells you little about loading speed.
Check the result with SiteReadyFor.SI
After publishing, rerun discovery and compare visible-content findings. The scanner reads initial HTML rather than executing your application in a target browser. Its result helps verify what that response contains; use a separate browser performance tool to investigate loading and interaction speed.