What Is Edge Side Rendering?
Why Render Pages at the Edge?
Websites need to render HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code into visual pages. Traditionally this happens on the origin server or client device. However, rendering on the client can be slow, while rendering everything on the origin does not scale. Customers will quickly leave a page that loads slowly and almost 70% of consumers indicate that page speed affects their likelihood to buy. Not only does website performance affect the customer experience, it can affect search engine rankings and subsequent organic web traffic.
Client-side rendering offers highly interactive and dynamic pages but the time to interactive can be slower due to the devices’ processing power and other factors. Server-side rendering creates a great first impression, with immediate first paint but adds server load and application complexity. Static site generation offers excellent performance, but lacks dynamic content.
Edge side rendering (ESR) addresses this by rendering pages at edge locations near end users, rather than on the origin server or client device. With ESR, pages can be prerendered at distributed edge locations - geographically closer to users - before being delivered. This provides low latency delivery while offloading work from origin infrastructure.
Key benefits of ESR
- Fast page loads: By minimizing processing on user devices, ESR enables much faster page loads than client-side rendering.
- Better user experience: Slow sites frustrate users, hurting satisfaction and loyalty. ESR provides fast first paints and interactivity for superior experiences.
- Reduced client-side workload: Edge rendering decreases device resource usage, helping poorer connections and less capable devices.
- Scalability: Distributed edge nodes handle surges easily. Server Side Rendering may hit origin capacity limits.
eCommerce website optimization drives revenue
For retail and eCommerce, delivering excellent web performance is critical for revenue. Research shows site speed strongly influences conversion rates and average order value. A Deloitte study in 2020 indicated that 0.1s site speed improvement leads to 8.4% conversion rate increase and an increase in average order value of 9.2%. ESR can play a key role in improving metrics through faster perceived performance.
Find out more today
With edge side rendering, businesses can remove web performance barriers holding back site experiences and conversions. Macrometa’s Dynamic Prerendering leverages a massively distributed edge cloud spanning 100+ locations globally for low-latency worldwide delivery. With Macrometa, static assets are cached at the edge while dynamic pages render on-demand to maximize speed and scalability.
To learn more, be sure to read this blog “Rendering for Revenue — How Intelligent Edge Side Page Rendering Unlocks Faster Sites & Revenue.”
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