Incremental Static Regeneration
Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) is a web development technique that allows static pages to be updated after they have been built, without requiring a full site rebuild. It enables developers to serve static content with the performance benefits of static site generation while maintaining dynamic, up-to-date data. This is typically implemented by revalidating and regenerating pages on-demand or at scheduled intervals when content changes.
Developers should use ISR when building websites that require fast loading times and SEO benefits of static pages but also need to display frequently updated content, such as e-commerce product listings, news articles, or user-generated content. It is particularly useful in frameworks like Next.js to balance performance with freshness, avoiding the overhead of server-side rendering for every request while keeping data current.