--- title: Server-side rendering --- So far, we've discussed creating Svelte components *on the client*, which is to say the browser. But you can also render Svelte components in Node.js. This can result in better perceived performance as it means the application starts rendering while the page is still downloading, before any JavaScript executes. It also has SEO advantages in some cases, and can be beneficial for people running older browsers that can't or won't run your JavaScript for whatever reason. ### Using the compiler If you're using the Svelte compiler, whether directly or via an integration like [rollup-plugin-svelte](https://github.com/rollup/rollup-plugin-svelte) or [svelte-loader](https://github.com/sveltejs/svelte-loader), you can tell it to generate a server-side component by passing the `generate: 'ssr'` option: ```js const { js } = svelte.compile(source, { generate: 'ssr' // as opposed to 'dom', the default }); ``` ### Registering Svelte Alternatively, an easy way to use the server-side renderer is to *register* it: ```js require('svelte/register.js'); ``` Now you can `require` your components: ```js const Thing = require('./components/Thing.html'); ``` If you prefer to use a different file extension, you can pass options like so: ```js require('svelte/register.js')({ extensions: ['.svelte'] }); ``` ### Server-side API Components have a different API in Node.js – rather than being a constructor that you use with the `new` keyword, a component is an object with a `render(data, options)` method: ```js require('svelte/register.js'); const Thing = require('./components/Thing.html'); const props = { answer: 42 }; const { html, css, head } = Thing.render(props); ``` [Lifecycle hooks](docs#lifecycle-hooks) will *not* run, with the exception of `onDestroy`, because the component is never 'mounted'. > The SSR compiler will generate a CommonJS module for each of your components – meaning that `import` and `export` statements are converted into their `require` and `module.exports` equivalents. If your components have non-component dependencies, they must also work as CommonJS modules in Node. If you're using ES2015 modules, we recommend the [`esm`](https://github.com/standard-things/esm) module for automatically converting them to CommonJS. #### Rendering styles You can also extract any [scoped styles](docs#scoped-styles) that are used by the component or its children: ```js const { css } = Thing.render(data); ``` You could put the resulting `css` in a separate stylesheet, or include them in the page inside a `