Most things in web development are difficult.

I started this post two weeks ago as a simple "How to use SSR to boost performance" article. After hours of profiling and consulting people smarter than me, I know one thing. Server-side Rendering is more nuanced than you would like.

You've probably been told that server-side rendering your JavaScript framework site will boost performance. But is that the truth? This article is going to test this assumption. Spoiler alert: the answer is maybe.

This is not a "beware SSR" article. SSR can still help with performance in certain scenarios. You just need to remember why you want to use SSR in the first place.