Server Side Rendering (SSR) means generating HTML on the server for each request (or at build/cache boundaries) instead of relying only on client-side rendering.
Benefits:
- faster first paint/content for many pages,
- better default SEO behavior,
- less JS required for initial render.
Tradeoffs:
- more server complexity,
- caching strategy becomes critical,
- hydration mismatch bugs can be painful.