Clientrendered

Clientrendered, or client-side rendering (CSR), refers to the practice of rendering a web application's user interface in the browser using JavaScript rather than generating the full HTML on the server. In a clientrendered setup, the initial HTML document is typically minimal, and a JavaScript bundle runs after the page loads to fetch data from APIs and construct or update the DOM to present content and interactivity.

How it works in practice: when the page is loaded, the browser downloads JavaScript that handles routing, data fetching, and rendering. Frameworks such as React, Vue, and Angular often rely on a virtual DOM and component-based structures to efficiently update the UI. Interaction and navigation occur without full page reloads, and many apps implement additional techniques like code splitting and service workers to improve responsiveness and offline support.

Clientrendered content is contrasted with server-side rendering (SSR), where HTML is generated on the server and sent to the browser, often improving initial load performance and SEO. CSR can be used alone or in hybrid approaches that combine server- and client-side rendering, such as hydration after an SSR render or progressive hydration.

Advantages of clientrendered apps include rich interactivity, improved client-side routing, and reduced server processing for dynamic interfaces. Drawbacks include potential SEO challenges and longer time-to-interactive on first load, especially if the JavaScript bundle is large or data fetching is slow. Mitigations include prerendering or SSR/SSG for important pages, performance optimizations like lazy loading and code-splitting, and accessibility and progressive enhancement practices.

See also: client-side rendering, CSR, server-side rendering, hydration, single-page application, static site generation.