You don't want to server-side render your Next.js app

Michele Riva

Michele Riva

Senior Software Architect @NearForm

Google Developer Expert

Microsoft MVP

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Real-World Next.js

Build scalable, high performances and modern web applications using Next.js, the React framework for production

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What is Next.js?

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Client-side rendering (CSR)

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Client-side rendering (CSR)

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CSR pros and cons

  • It makes your app feel like a native app
  • Page transitions made easy
  • Lazy loading and performances
  • Less server-side workload
  • No server required (CDN is enough)
  • Bad for SEO
  • Bad initial page load time

Pros

Cons

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Server-side Rendering (SSR)

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SSR pros and cons

Pros

Cons

  • More secure webapps*
  • More compatible websites
  • Enhanced search engine optimization
  • Highly dynamic content
  • Server is required
  • High server workload
  • Higher maintenance costs

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Static-site generation (SSG)

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SSG pros and cons

Pros

Cons

  • Easy to scale
  • Outstanding performances
  • More secure requests
  • Server is not required (CDN is enough)
  • No dynamic content on the server-side
  • Relies on CSR for dynamic content
  • Need to rebuild and deploy the whole site on each page change*

*can be fixed via incremental static regeneration (ISR)

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Client-side rendering

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Server-side rendering

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Static site generation

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Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR)

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Why would I want to avoid SSR?

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React SSR is not really efficient (yet?)

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So go serverless!

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  • 5GB free
  • $0.12 per GB

Networking

  • 128MB RAM, 200MHz CPU: $0.000000231 per 100ms
  • 1024MB RAM, 1.4GHz CPU: $0.000001650 per 100ms
  • 8192MB RAM, 4.8GHz CPU: $0.000006800 per 100ms

Compute time

  • First 2M free
  • Beyond 2M $0.40 per million

Invocations

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Let's say we have to handle 100 SSR requests per second (259,200,000 requests per month).

The average execution time is 300ms.

We can use the cheapest RAM option (128MB).

We require around 100kb of bandwidth per execution.

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Play smart

depending on the scenario

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Example scenario: social network

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Feed page features

  • Highly dynamic, custom for each user
  • Doesn't need SEO
  • A lot of static assets
  • One common page for every user

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Feed page features

  • Highly dynamic, custom for each user
  • Doesn't need SEO
  • A lot of static assets
  • One common page for every user

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Single post page

  • Large amount of pages
  • Needs good SEO
  • Big static assets
  • One single page for each post

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Single post page

  • Large amount of pages
  • Needs good SEO
  • Big static assets
  • One single page for each post

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Account settings page

  • Needs high security
  • Doesn't need SEO
  • Protected under authentication

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Account settings page

  • Needs high security
  • Doesn't need SEO
  • Protected under authentication

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Example scenario: e-commerce

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Home page/storefront

  • Needs high performances
  • Needs awesome SEO
  • Content changes from time to time

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Home page/storefront

  • Needs high performances
  • Needs awesome SEO
  • Content changes from time to time

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Single product page

  • ~250 products
  • Needs awesome SEO
  • Needs great performances
  • Needs some dynamic data (stock quantity, etc.)

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Single product page

  • ~250 products
  • Needs awesome SEO
  • Needs great performances
  • Needs some dynamic data (stock quantity, etc.)

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Account settings page

  • Needs high security
  • Doesn't need SEO
  • Protected under authentication

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Account settings page

  • Needs high security
  • Doesn't need SEO
  • Protected under authentication

SSR

SSR + CACHE

SSG + ISR

SSG + CSR

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Lesson learned #1

Content is dynamic and depends on the user?

Generate a static page at build time and render the dynamic data on the client-side.

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Lesson learned #2

Content is static and SEO is important?

Generate a static page at build time and adopt ISR when needed.

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Lesson learned #3

Content is static, but the pages gets created dynamically

Server-side render your pages and put your webapp behind a cache.

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In any case, you want to avoid

SSR at all costs

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https://rwnjs.com/order/amazon

https://rwnjs.com/order/packt

Adapted from

Real-World Next.js

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@MicheleRiva

@MicheleRivaCode

/in/MicheleRiva95

www.micheleriva.dev

You don't want to ssr your Next.js app

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You don't want to ssr your Next.js app

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