DEV Community: Amahle Comfort Nxumalo

Difference between static and server side rendering

Amahle Comfort Nxumalo — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 23:59:35 +0000

One of the two commonly used terms in tech and are usually used together but offer different outputs and serve different purposes.we will explain the difference including when it is best to use one over the other so stay tuned.

static rendering is just used probably by less than 2% of the websites on the internet but is the most easier one to implement.think of it as just requesting an order for a meal at your local restaurant, instead of being given your meal once ready, you are given an empty tray without any meal on it (the meal is not yet ready but you have already been given a tray where you will put your meal) somehow that is very slow as the seller will take time to give you a tray,then head back to prepare your order.once your order is ready then the seller comes back and fills your tray with food, that is very incovenience (multipe requests and responses).

server side rendering on the other hand does the opposite it registers your order then gives it along with the tray once fully prepared (ready to be served) now this is very much time saving the seller only travels once and that is when your order is ready.

when the static site renders, it renders with empty content at first, then populate and load the entire page once every content of the page is available what are the drawbacks ? like every website/web app nowadays it fetches some data from the server, since it renders with empty page at first and only loads once the entire content is available, the http requests will not be possible to make so it will first wait for content to be available then wait for response for the request. testing it in a localhost machine will not show this as a flaw and bad user experience but when running on production with more than 100 users accessing it, it will expose that and users will not tolerate the 2 min loading speed while starring at blank screen.the solution to this is server side rendering.

how does server side rendering work ? the analogy of the seller and trays we used, remember it ? here also everything works like that the entire page loading is perfomed on the backend including http requests, so the browser only sends one response that is a response for a page request and data fetching is handled on server side it is time saving and convenient.

the prons of static rendering:
excels in providing fast web interactivity
requires minimal effort to configure

the cons of static rendering:
web crawlers cannot find tag information essential for SEO since it first renders empty so the is nothing to crawl or extract information from except the blank page itself of course.

the prons of server side rendering:
excels and provides very good user experience and security.
provides fast loading speed through one request approach.
follows SEO standard approach.

the cons of server side rendering:
may not provide fast web interactivity.

appreciate the time for reading ❤️❤️❤️

Pillars of the web:frontend,backend,APIS.

Amahle Comfort Nxumalo — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 01:56:58 +0000

on the web and a huge part of if not all of internet, we have 3 core players making it all possible for internet to work , frontend, backend, apis.

beginning with frontend that is something every user of the internet interact with when browsing content on social media,liking and sharing images.what exactly is frontend ? frontend cannot be explained further than being the text you read when visiting a website,images you view on social media app and the intuitive of seeing a button to like a photo and clicking it with an expectation of a photo being liked. it is what you interact with to do some action.all of what you see in browsers,social media apps, and every app you use is frontend at it's simplicity and best.languages include HTML, CSS, JS, REACT JS , ANGULAR JS, VUE JS, TS.

backend is another part of web which belong to the same provider(most times) as the frontend but you do not interact with directly and cannot see as a user. it's jobs involves applying logic the business implies or need to function it is what supplies the content to the frontend you interact with.images,videos and text content(part of it) does not manifest from the frontend however the speed of the internet does this seamlessy it is not easy to spot unless you are a tech person.backend handles security and apply logic to check if something is correct or incorrect.languages include JAVA, JS, C#, RUBY, PYTHON.

apis are just a means to seamlessly and securely transport information required by both parties from one end to the other end vice versa.
their role is to carry information like text,images,videos from the backend to the frontend vice versa.common ones are REST APIS, GRAPHQL.

thank you for reading .

Authentication and authorization : difference

Amahle Comfort Nxumalo — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 01:33:42 +0000

You might have heard the terms authentication and authorization and wondered where and when they are used, they most of the times missunderstood by developers,students, and tech geeks. well here we clear the differences and mention cases for when one is used.

think of staying in a hotel where you provide proof that you are one of the clients and then you gain access to the building, now that is what authentication is, you as a client providing some information to prove you are who you claim to be.we will use that example (hotel example) to provide clear explaination.

1.you want to enter your hotel room so you pass through security first and provide perhaps a card given to you by a hotel for your stay and access (in the account case you would provide information like username and password, in this example hotel card is the information) the hotel securities slide the card through some card reading machine and it gives back a status of approved or declined based on some logic.the machine would check if a person with your name exists in their database if true then you will be granted access to enter.(you finished entering login details and clicked login, the information is sent to the server and compared against some logic to check if you exist in the database and your details are correct. if the latter is true then you are granted access to the resources otherwise you are declined).that is how authentication works in a nutshell with different strategies but all checking if details are matching.

2.now that you have entered in the hotel what tasks can you perform with your rights and what tasks you cannot perform is authorization taking place. it's role comes after being authenticated first place.with resident hotel card you cannot go to the kitchen do the cooking, you cannot go in the offices, in the online account case you cannot delete accounts of other users,cannot change their credentials, as you do not have authority to do so. so in simple terms authorization permit and restrict what you can see and do based on your registered role. it is about checking if you are a staff member,if true then you can enter work premises specifically made for staff members and do some tasks (checking if your role is admin to allow you to see admin content and perform admin tasks).

thank you for reading 😁😁😁