Dan Shappir

Overcoming the Performance Cost of Hydration

Modern JavaScript frameworks overcame the rendering performance limitations of Single-Page Applications (SPAs) by introducing Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Static Site Generation (SSG). Unfortunately at the same time they created a potentially worse problem: unresponsive user interfaces. This is due to the requirement to hydrate UIs provided by SSR / SSG using client-side JavaScript before they can respond to user interactions. Recently frameworks have started to tackle this issue using a variety of different approaches. These approaches include: islands of hydration, selective hydration, server-side components, progressive enhancement, render slicing, edge computing, and resumability. In this talk I will describe these approaches, and highlight their benefits and limitations. Together we will try to determine which approach is likely to win out.