If SSR is so much more technically well-optimized and SEO-friendly, why don’t all websites use it?

Turns out, using SSR for your website does come with some significant drawbacks. It’s expensive, difficult to implement and requires a lot of manpower to set up. 

It also puts the burden of rendering your JavaScript content on your own servers, which will rack up your server maintenance costs.

Websites that use JavaScript frameworks need universal libraries to enable SSR; Angular requires Angular Universal, React and Vue need Next.JS. All of them require additional work from your engineering team, which costs you money.

SSR pages will have a higher TTFB latency and a slower time-to-interactive. Your user will see the content sooner, but if they click on something, nothing will happen. They’ll get frustrated and leave.

SSR is not a fix-all solution. You need to assess your website’s technical needs and challenges before putting it in place.