When should we use SSR (Server side render) and when SSG (Static site Generation)

[patzick]

Moved from discord question (by Jens Van Dorpe): https://discord.com/channels/770285988244750366/786224408460656701/837320524358352896

What would you recommend for the Shopware PWA? To use the server side rendering or the static site generation. Can I find an overview of the pro's and con's somewhere? Why is the server side rendering the default for the SW PWA?

[patzick]

Answer from discord: https://discord.com/channels/770285988244750366/786224408460656701/837589760540147713

The answer is always - depends, very quick highlights though:

STATIC:

• easy architecture, deploy to any CDN and page is working
• quicker, the server cannot compete with serving static file

• bundle is growing with the number of routes (and build time depends on it)
• need to rebuild after content changes

Overall: good for small shops, where there are not many products and they don't change so often. We, for example, are using SSG for documentation sites, as once it's built the content is not changing

SSR:

• can quickly on the runtime prepare any page view and serve it to the client
• bundle size doesn't depend on the numbers of routes in the application
• can adapt to dynamically changed content without the need to rebuild the app

• depends on the server, slow server will make the initial response slow as well
• you need an additional running server, scale it when there are more users

Overall: better choice for shops with the medium and large amount of products, where products and CMS pages are changing often and the changes should be visible near instantly.