Hey everyone! I’ve been working mainly with backend systems but now I need to make some frontend decisions. Recently I keep seeing posts saying that single page apps might not be the best choice anymore. People are talking about how these client-rendered apps put too much work on the user’s device and can get really complicated to maintain.
At the same time, server-side rendering and static generation seem to be getting more popular again. You can use middleware layers to connect your frontend with APIs and apparently this gives you more flexibility.
But then again, the SPA ecosystem has gotten so much better over the years. There are tons of tools and resources available now that make building these apps much simpler than before.
I get that some apps obviously need one approach over the other. Like if you’re building something interactive like an online game, you probably want client-side rendering. And if it’s just a simple company website, server-side makes more sense.
But what about everything in between? What do you think works better these days? What have you been using for your projects?
Interesting problem! what’s your current backend stack? that’ll help determine which way to go. also, any performance issues or specific user demographics you’re targeting? user devices and connection speeds usually make the decision pretty obvious.
i totally get the spa fatigue! i switched to server-side rendering too. it just makes things smoother, especially on slower devices. plus, google loves SSR for indexing. i think it’s a safer bet overall unless you’re building something super interactive.
Depends on what you need performance-wise and what your team can handle. I’ve seen hybrid approaches crush it for most apps that aren’t just basic websites but aren’t super complex either. Next.js lets you do server-side rendering for the first page load, then switch to client-side for everything after. You get the SEO boost and fast initial load from SSR, plus the smooth interactions of SPAs for dynamic stuff. I look at time-to-interactive vs long-term performance. If users need content fast and you’re worried about huge JS bundles, go SSR. But if your app has tons of user interactions and real-time updates, SPAs still win once they’re loaded.