Is server side routing the same as server side rendering / isomorphic javascript?

Question

I'm struggling to see the difference between server side routing and redirecting in it and server side rendering / isomorphic javascript. How are they different, if they are different.

Answer 1

Universal (Isomorphic) Javascript can execute both on the client and the server and share the application state between the two sides. It means that the application uses the same rendering engine on the client and the server. The point of it is that the client should continue from the point where the server finished its job.

Main advantages:

• SEO
• performance

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On the other hand we have the old way of dealing with SPA (single-page applications). It runs entirely in the browser and the server is asked for data only.

This might seem like a clean and nice separation of concerns, While this can lead to a nice, clean separation of concerns, unavoidably some parts of application logic or view logic are being duplicated in both the server and the client (usually in different languages).

In addition application that is running only in client-side is not able to serve HTML to users or crawlers. This decreases the performance of the initial page load and also it's more difficult to deal with SEO.

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Sources:

• Scaling Isomorphic JavaScript Code
• In Pursuit of the Holy Grail: Building Isomorphic JavaScript Apps
• From AngularJS to React: The Isomorphic Way
• Isomorphic JavaScript: The Future of Web Apps
• What is Isomorphic JavaScript and When Should it Be Used?