Streaming Rendering

Streaming rendering is a web development technique that allows a server to send HTML content to a client in chunks as it becomes available, rather than waiting for the entire page to be rendered. This enables faster initial page loads and improved perceived performance by displaying content progressively. It is commonly used in modern web frameworks to enhance user experience, especially for content-heavy or dynamic applications.

Also known as: Streaming SSR, Progressive Rendering, Chunked Rendering, Incremental Rendering, Streaming Server-Side Rendering

Why learn Streaming Rendering?

Developers should use streaming rendering when building applications where time-to-first-byte (TTFB) and initial content display speed are critical, such as e-commerce sites, news portals, or dashboards. It reduces perceived latency by showing a loading state or partial content immediately, which is particularly beneficial for users on slow networks or with large, data-dependent pages. This technique is essential for optimizing Core Web Vitals metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and First Contentful Paint (FCP).

Learning Resources

• docs: MDN Web Docs: Streaming
• docs: Next.js Documentation: Streaming
• docs: React Docs: Streaming Server Rendering
• tutorial: Web.dev: Streaming
• video: YouTube: Next.js 13 Streaming