SSG vs SSR vs CSR - The Distinction Is Timing and Data Freshness, Not Just Where Code Runs

CSR and SSR both produce identical HTML on first load, differing only in bundle size

SSG always produces stale data, while SSR and CSR always guarantee real-time freshness

CSR renders entirely in the browser from an empty shell, SSR generates HTML on the server for every request, and SSG pre-renders HTML once at build time and serves that same static file to every visitor until the next build or revalidation

The three strategies differ only in which JavaScript framework is used to implement them