21 lines
1.7 KiB
Text
21 lines
1.7 KiB
Text
---
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title: Rendering
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description: Learn the fundamentals of rendering in React and Next.js.
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---
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By default, Next.js **pre-renders** every page. This means that Next.js generates HTML for each page in advance, instead of having it all done by client-side JavaScript. Pre-rendering can result in better performance and SEO.
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Each generated HTML is associated with minimal JavaScript code necessary for that page. When a page is loaded by the browser, its JavaScript code runs and makes the page fully interactive (this process is called [hydration](https://react.dev/reference/react-dom/client/hydrateRoot) in React).
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### Pre-rendering
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Next.js has two forms of pre-rendering: **Static Generation** and **Server-side Rendering**. The difference is in **when** it generates the HTML for a page.
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- Static Generation: The HTML is generated at **build time** and will be reused on each request.
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- Server-side Rendering: The HTML is generated on **each request**.
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Importantly, Next.js lets you choose which pre-rendering form you'd like to use for each page. You can create a "hybrid" Next.js app by using Static Generation for most pages and using Server-side Rendering for others.
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We recommend using Static Generation over Server-side Rendering for performance reasons. Statically generated pages can be cached by CDN with no extra configuration to boost performance. However, in some cases, Server-side Rendering might be the only option.
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You can also use client-side data fetching along with Static Generation or Server-side Rendering. That means some parts of a page can be rendered entirely by clientside JavaScript. To learn more, take a look at the [Data Fetching](/docs/pages/building-your-application/data-fetching/client-side) documentation.
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