Veteran Frontend Engineer, Joshua Praise has explained how Hybrid Rendering can be a game-changer, especially for startups looking to punch above their weight.

“Hybrid rendering is invaluable because it gives teams the flexibility to choose the right rendering approach for different parts of an application.” By strategically mixing Server-Side Rendering (SSR), Static Site Generation (SSG), and Client-Side Rendering (CSR) using frameworks like Next.js, Nuxt.js, or Svelte, businesses can fine-tune their landing pages for SEO, speed, and user experience. For startups constantly hunting for ways to stand out, gain visibility, and keep users engaged, hybrid rendering is like finding a Swiss Army knife in their digital toolkit,” he said.

According to him, the key is simple: load quickly, rank higher, and keep users engaged. Speed is fundamental for conversions, and load times need to be as minimal as possible so users stay longer. Research shows that if a page takes longer than three seconds to load, nearly 40 per cent of visitors will bounce. In a digital landscape where attention spans are shorter than ever, hybrid rendering gives you the edge you need to stand out.

He said that hybrid rendering allows for pre-render landing pages using SSG, which means we can serve those pages almost instantly. This is crucial because studies show that a one-second delay in page load time can reduce conversions by as much as 7 per cent. For startups, every percentage point matters.

Praise suggests that using SSG for marketing pages, we get rapid load times, and search engines like Google see fully rendered HTML, which greatly improves our SEO performance. That SEO boost means a better chance to rank on search engines, bringing organic traffic to websites without paid ads – a huge win for a startup.

“User experience is where hybrid rendering really shines. By mixing SSR and CSR, startups can control how users interact with different parts of their application. SSR can be used to deliver content-heavy or frequently updated pages, like product listings or blog posts, so that users get meaningful content immediately. This is a strategy that he used on BrightHR UK to improve overall performance of the website by 112.5 per cent in four months.

“From a business perspective, better user experience translates directly into higher engagement and conversions. Think of an E-commerce site: if customers see the content quickly and interact smoothly with features like recommendations or reviews, they’re much more likely to add items to their cart and complete a purchase. That seamless experience builds trust and keeps users coming back, which, in the long run, drives growth and retention.

He explained that hybrid rendering is a perfect fit for applications where performance, SEO, and interactivity all play a critical role. Apart from E-commerce sites, Real estate apps, content-heavy sites like news portals, and SaaS platforms with user dashboards would also benefit greatly from Hybrid rendering strategy.

SSG can be used for the main product pages to ensure they load almost instantly and benefit from SEO. Then, layered with CSR to dynamically load recommendations based on the user’s browsing history, creating a personalized experience that’s proven to increase sales. According to a study by Accenture, personalisation can increase revenue by up to 15 per cent. By delivering the core content quickly through SSG and layering on CSR for personalisation, you’re optimising for both SEO and conversion.

Scalability is one big advantage of Hybrid rendering. As a startup grows, the ability to serve many users without skyrocketing server costs is key. Hybrid rendering helps startups manage server resources efficiently. By leveraging SSG, startups can pre-render and cache pages across a CDN like CloudFlare, which reduces the load on servers. A report from Cloudflare found that pre-rendering and caching with SSG reduced server loads by up to 60% for high-traffic websites, allowing them to handle larger user volumes without scaling server costs.

“Frameworks like Next.js and Nuxt.js make hybrid rendering accessible by offering built-in support for SSR, SSG, and CSR, which is incredibly useful for developers.
For instance, Next.js v13 has functions like getStaticProps for SSG and getServerSideProps for SSR (recently generateStaticParams and dynamicParams from Next.js v13.4+), allowing teams to switch rendering strategies on a per-page basis.

This flexibility means we can decide the best approach for each page in the app – static, server-rendered, or client-rendered – based on its unique requirements.

“This strategy was particularly useful for Trekk Scooters, Africa’s pioneer e-mobility sharing platform where Joshua volunteered to champion the migration of their web application from a legacy stack to Next.js during which they experimented with different rendering strategies and personalized user experience as needed. The startup was able to iterate faster and ship features that impacted growth directly,” he added.