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Rendering Modes — Senior Interview Prep

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Rendering Modes — Senior Interview Prep

The “where does HTML come from” question — client-rendered, server-rendered, statically generated, incrementally regenerated, streamed, edge-rendered. The senior position: there is no one best mode — pick per route based on data freshness, SEO, personalization, and performance budget. Most real apps use a hybrid mix.

Files

# Topic
01 CSR vs SSR vs SSG vs ISR vs streaming SSR — the matrix
02 Hydration models — full, selective, progressive, partial
03 React Server Components deeper
04 Streaming SSR with Suspense — practical patterns
05 Next.js App Router rendering choices — per-route control
06 Islands architecture — Astro, Fresh, Iles
07 Edge rendering and CDN-as-runtime

The hybrid baseline

A real fullstack app rarely picks one mode. A common shape:

Route Mode Why
Marketing landing (/) SSG or ISR static, SEO-critical, change infrequently
Blog post (/blog/:slug) ISR (revalidate hourly) mostly static, sometimes updated, SEO matters
Search results (/search?q=...) SSR dynamic per query, can’t pre-build
User dashboard (/dashboard) RSC + client islands per-user, behind auth, SEO doesn’t matter
Admin panel (/admin/*) SPA / CSR heavy interactivity, behind login, no SEO
API routes (/api/*) server functions mutations + data fetching

Next.js App Router and Nuxt make this per-route choice declarative. Older SPA-only stacks (CRA-style) force one mode.

Cross-references