{"id":731,"date":"2025-04-30T09:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T09:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/?p=731"},"modified":"2026-02-05T12:06:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T12:06:46","slug":"what-is-angular-ssr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/what-is-angular-ssr\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Angular SSR (Server-Side Rendering)?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Angular SSR is Angular server-side rendering. It enables server-side rendering of Angular apps instead of client-side or browser-side. Normally, Angular apps are Single Page Applications (SPAs), meaning all the rendering happens on the client (browser) using JavaScript. But with SSR, the server pre-renders HTML content and sends a fully rendered page to the browser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is made possible in Angular using a platform called Angular Universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Angular SSR Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Client-Side Rendering (CSR):<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>User visits a page \u2192 Browser downloads JS bundles \u2192 Angular app bootstraps \u2192 Content renders.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bad for SEO and slower Time-To-Content (TTC).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Server-Side Rendering (SSR):<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>User visits a page \u2192 Server runs Angular app \u2192 Pre-renders HTML \u2192 Sends to browser.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Faster initial load and better SEO.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Use SSR for Angular?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Feature<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Without SSR<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>With SSR<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>SEO<\/strong><\/td><td>Poor<\/td><td>Excellent<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>First Contentful Paint<\/strong><\/td><td>Slower (due to JS parsing)<\/td><td>Faster (HTML is ready)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>JS Disabled Browsers<\/strong><\/td><td>App breaks<\/td><td>App still shows content<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Social Sharing<\/strong><\/td><td>Unreliable previews<\/td><td>Rich previews with content<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Example: Angular SSR Setup<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Install Angular Universal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>ng add @nguniversal\/express-engine<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This will:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Add server-side rendering support.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Generate a <em>server.ts<\/em> file and a new <em>app.server.module.ts<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use Express server to serve your app.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Project Structure After SSR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>src\/\napp\/\napp.component.ts\napp.module.ts\napp.server.module.ts &lt;-- For server-only features\nserver.ts &lt;-- Express server entry<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. server.ts (Simplified)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>import 'zone.js\/node';\nimport { ngExpressEngine } from '@nguniversal\/express-engine';\nimport * as express from 'express';\nimport { join } from 'path';\n\nimport { AppServerModule } from '.\/src\/main.server';\n\nconst app = express();\n\napp.engine('html', ngExpressEngine({\n  bootstrap: AppServerModule,\n}));\n\napp.set('view engine', 'html');\napp.set('views', join(__dirname, 'browser'));\n\napp.get('*.*', express.static(join(__dirname, 'browser')));\napp.get('*', (req, res) =&gt; {\n  res.render('index', { req });\n});\n\napp.listen(4000, () =&gt; {\n  console.log(`Angular SSR app is running on http:\/\/localhost:4000`);\n});\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4.&nbsp; Run the SSR Build<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>npm run build:ssr    # Builds browser and server bundle\nnpm run serve:ssr    # Starts Express server<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">SSR Lifecycle in Angular Universal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Request comes in<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Express runs <em>AppServerModule<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Angular renders the component tree<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Renders to HTML<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sends HTML to browser<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Browser downloads JS and bootstraps Angular (hydration)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">SSR vs Pre-rendering<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Feature<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>SSR<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Pre-rendering (Scully, Angular Prerender)<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Runs at runtime<\/strong><\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>No (built at build time)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Handles dynamic routes<\/strong><\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Static only unless manually handled<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Best for<\/strong><\/td><td>Dynamic, user-specific pages<\/td><td>Static marketing\/blog pages<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Use Cases for Angular SSR<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>SEO-sensitive pages (landing pages, product pages)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Social media previews (meta tags rendered server-side)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Content-heavy or data-driven pages (faster FCP)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Apps targeting regions with slow internet<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tips &amp; Best Practices<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>SSR apps require Node.js backend (e.g., Express)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Watch out for browser-only APIs (window, document)\u2014wrap them in conditionals<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>TransferState API helps transfer data between server and client side without re-fetching.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/blog\/what-makes-server-side-rendering-in-angular-website-development-so-effective\/\">Angular SSR<\/a> enables rendering of Angular apps on the server using Angular Universal.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Great for SEO, performance, and user experience.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It sets up an Express server that renders Angular on-the-fly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angular SSR is Angular server-side rendering. It enables server-side rendering of Angular apps instead of client-side or browser-side. Normally, Angular apps are Single Page Applications (SPAs), meaning all the rendering happens on the client (browser) using JavaScript. But with SSR, the server pre-renders HTML content and sends a fully rendered page to the browser. This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angular","category-web"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmarix.com\/qanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}