Making sense of web rendering patterns (SSR, CSR, static, islands)

In this PodRocket episode, Gil Fink (SparXis CEO) joins the show to break down today’s most common web rendering patterns — server-side rendering (SSR), client-side rendering (CSR), static rendering, and islands/resumability — and why the “right” choice depends on what each page actually needs.

Gil argues that frameworks often hide these tradeoffs, which can leave teams stuck with performance costs they didn’t anticipate. The core idea: rendering strategy is ultimately about how quickly you can deliver meaningful content and interactivity, without overpaying in server compute, hydration time, or complexity.

Key takeaways:

• SSR tradeoff: Faster first meaningful content, but more server work per request — which can increase cloud cost and time-to-first-byte if you’re rendering personalized pages on demand.
• CSR tradeoff: Great for highly interactive apps, but users may wait through hydration and “spinner time” before the UI becomes fully interactive.
• Static rendering: Ideal for content-heavy pages that rarely change (blogs, marketing, pricing pages) — especially when paired with CDN caching.
  Islands architecture: Best when only small parts of an otherwise-static page need interactivity; less useful when everything is interactive.

Gil’s practical rule of thumb: decide per page (or per repeated page-type) based on interactivity and change frequency — and prefer frameworks that support multiple rendering modes so you can mix patterns instead of committing to one approach across the whole app.

Check out the full episode here.