Angular Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
What is Server-Side Rendering (SSR) in Angular?
Server-side rendering (SSR) is a technique used to render web pages on the server side and deliver pre-rendered HTML to the client's browser.
Among the benefits of this method are improved performance, SEO and better user experience; especially for initial page loads. When it comes to Angular, SSR is done through Angular Universal.
Understanding Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Its Benefits
Better Performance: What happens here is that SSR reduces the time it takes for a web page to become interactive by sending pre-rendered HTML to the browser. This in turn leads to quicker first page load times and enhanced perceived performance.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engines can crawl and index pre-rendered HTML content more effectively than client-side-rendered content. SSR improves the discoverability of web pages and can positively impact search engine rankings.
Enriched Consumer Experience: If an individual is on a slower connection, SSR will provide them with a faster view of the content and thus contributes to a better user experience across various devices and network conditions.
Social Media Sharing Support: To get better previews and more engagement while sharing links to your web application, pre-rendered HTML content can be shared on social media platforms.
Implementing SSR with Angular Universal
Angular Universal Installation: Angular Universal includes some utilities and tools for implementing server-side rendering in Angular applications. You can install this package into your existing angular project by using angular CLI.
ng add @nguniversal/express-engine
Generate Universal Application: Angular Universal generates a separate Angular application that runs on the server side. Use Angular CLI to generate the universal application.
ng generate universal --clientProject PROJECT_NAME
Universal Application Configuration: Customizing server configuration files such as routes.ts according to the needs of our application is possible with angular universal since it ships default with express server
Build and Serve: After building the universal app for production, you should deploy it to your server
npm run build:ssr
npm run serve:ssr
Test & Debugging: Ensure that the behavior of your SSR enabled app is correct both client side and server side; Additionally, debugging issues related to Server Side Rendering might require logging on servers or making use of proxy servers designed for debugging purposes.
Additional Considerations:
State management, asynchronous data fetching and compatibility with third-party libraries may be some of the challenges encountered with SSR. It might help if you consider using server-side data pre-fetching techniques as well as universal-friendly libraries that can deal with these obstacles.
Optimize the performance of your server so that it responds quickly and scales easily under heavy traffic conditions.