Prerendere

Prerendere is a term used in computing to describe the process of rendering content before it is requested by a user or device, with the aim of reducing latency and delivering a smoother experience. The concept spans multiple domains, including web development and computer graphics, where precomputed results can be reused to speed up subsequent interactions.

In web development, prerendering refers to generating HTML for pages at build time rather than on demand. The resulting static pages can be served from a content delivery network or cache, providing fast initial paints and improved search engine optimization. This approach contrasts with client-side rendering, which builds pages in the user's browser, and with server-side rendering, which renders on each request. Many modern frameworks offer hybrid strategies, prerendering a subset of routes at build time while rendering others dynamically as needed.

In computer graphics, prerendering describes baking or precomputing data such as lightmaps, shadows, textures, or animation frames. These assets are stored and later applied during real-time rendering to reduce the computational load and achieve faster frame rates, at the cost of flexibility for dynamic scenes.

Advantages of prerendering include reduced latency, predictable performance, and lower load on servers or GPUs. Disadvantages include potential content staleness, longer build or bake times, storage requirements, and reduced suitability for highly dynamic or personalized content.

See also: prerendering (related concept), static site generation, server-side rendering, client-side rendering, prefetching, baking (graphics).