Sitecore JavaScript Rendering SDK (JSS)

Sitecore is among the prevailing platforms for the management of content, the experience of end users, and the finest marketing outcome.

Out of the numerous rendering kits available across Sitecore for tech frameworks, Javascript Rendering SDK is one such set of packages of JavaScript that brings the finest support for the entire JavaScript frameworks and allows you to develop top-notch application interfaces accumulating Sitecore data.

The Sitecore JavaScript Rendering SDK (JSS) is part of the headless development suite of Sitecore products, created to enable modern development workflows to produce applications and systems that follow the Jamstack architecture.

What is Jamstack?

Jamstack is the modern web development architecture based on JavaScript, APIs, and Markup (JAM). It isn’t a specific technology or framework but a different architecture for building apps and websites.

Instead of using a traditional CMS or site builder, a Jamstack site splits up the code (JavaScript), the site infrastructure (APIs), and the content (Markup). These are handled in a decoupled architecture with a split between the server and client sides.

The purpose is to build Jamstack websites and applications to push the load from the server onto the client. It leads to fewer requests sent to a server reducing the wait time.

Why use the Jamstack architecture?

Choose Jamstack instead of a traditional approach to go as serverless as possible. It basically sends tasks to the client which means fewer server requests and better performance and faster load times.

With Jamstack, you focus on a different level of the tech stack, the level that is the real constraint on a project. These constraints boil down to three core parts:

• JavaScript is the universal runtime layer in the browser to add extra functionality and dynamic behavior.
• APIs to replace the database and fetch everything you need directly from the services required.
• Markup to serve the actual website content and HTML needed.

 

Features and Capabilities of JSS

To assist developers in creating modern, cross-platform, scalable, and frontend applications powered by Sitecore data, Sitecore JavaScript Rendering SDK (JSS) comes with the following:

• JSS CLI, is a Node-based command-line tool to help you create and maintain applications.
• A core JavaScript package for leveraging Sitecore Headless Services and Sitecore Experience Edge endpoints using REST or GraphQL.
• Abstractions for frontend developers that allow working with Sitecore.
• Utility functions and frontend components abstract the complexities of fetching dynamic Sitecore data.
• Dedicated SDKs for popular frontend frameworks: Next.js (11.0+), React (17.0+), Angular (11.2+), Vue.js (3.1+), React Native (experimental).

 

Frameworks like Next.js reduce development overhead and standardize development patterns. A limited set of opinions about framework-specific tooling allows developers to leverage best-in-class, familiar tools for code optimization, theming and styling, display of dictionary data, and search engine optimization.

• Quick setup of development environments using officially supported application samples. The application samples include examples documenting how to use each framework-specific SDK.
• Multiple rendering options, applications created with any framework-specific SDKs can be rendered server-side for improved search engine optimization using framework capabilities (Next.js) or tooling provided by JSS. For Next.js applications, developers can use static generation, incremental regeneration, and hybrid rendering.
• Support for integrating advanced Sitecore editors, retaining content and layout management, and preview capabilities.
• Support for multilingual applications, taking advantage of Sitecore language versioning, localized routes, and language defaults.
• Support for Sitecore experience management and optimization.
• Support for Sitecore MVC applications, allowing developers to use JSS in existing Sitecore MVC implementation through client-side embedding or use JSS to generate MVC applications as static HTML.
• JSS does not lock the entire implementation into JavaScript. JSS applications can coexist with .NET Core or traditional MVC applications in the same Sitecore instance. Development teams can use a hybrid stack and migrate MVC applications to Next.js/React using JSS.

 

Wrapping Up

If your organization wants minimal load over the servers with a quick response and reduced waiting time, then equipping the Jamstack to build is a wise option.

And with the broad instruments within the Sitecore JavaScript rendering SDK for cross-platform, scalability, and applications powered by Sitecore data, you can explore more to bring over your application with minimized efforts. Contact us today to know how we can help.