"Same Same But Different", from client-side to server-side rendering: A natural evolution for better web vitals! 🚀
A few months ago, I built a Blog/Portfolio app using Vue, fetching external content through APIs. It did the job — but I knew I could squeeze out more SEO performance. The solution? Moving to Nuxt with its built-in SSR magic. 🔥
🤔 Why Migrate to Nuxt?
SEO was the main driver here. Vue's client-side rendering meant search engines didn't always catch dynamic content fetched via APIs. With Nuxt's server-side rendering (SSR), every request generates pre-rendered HTML — making Google and other search engines much happier. 📈
Clickbait Disclaimer: While Nuxt is awesome, it won't magically fix everything! I still had to manually optimize color contrast ratios, heading hierarchies, and other accessibility goodies. No framework can replace good old-fashioned human attention to detail!
🛠️ The Migration Process
Honestly, the whole process was smoother than expected. Most components were plug-and-play. Having worked a lot with Next.js before, Nuxt's file-based routing felt like second nature.
I did not have to change much in the codebase, but I did have to learn a few new things:
- Project Setup: Installed Nuxt and set up the folder structure.
- Routing: Moved components into the pages and components directories. Nuxt automatically handled routes — no extra config needed.
- Content Fetching: Replaced Vue's lifecycle methods with asyncData and fetch hooks. Now data was ready before rendering.
- Metadata Management: Used useHead and head() to inject dynamic meta tags for better SEO and Open Graph tags for social media.
- Build & Deployment: Configured Nuxt for SSR mode and shipped the app as node application to my K3s cluster at Hetzner.
📊 Web Vitals Improvements
Switching to SSR brought noticeable boosts to a few performance specific Core Web Vitals:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Faster first render times with pre-rendered content.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): More stable layouts thanks to server-side generated HTML.
- First Input Delay (FID): Snappier interactions through optimized hydration.
🌟 Final Thoughts
Migrating from Vue to Nuxt was way easier than I expected — and the performance gains were totally worth it. With SSR, filesystem-based routing, and an intuitive developer experience, the whole transition felt like a natural upgrade.
If you're eyeing better SEO and faster load times, Nuxt is absolutely the way to go. 💪
Vue.js, Nuxt.js, TypeScript
SSR, SEO Optimization, Core Web Vitals