What is Rendora?
Rendora is an open-source dynamic server-side rendering (SSR) solution designed to improve SEO and performance for JavaScript-heavy websites. It acts as a reverse proxy that intelligently decides when to serve a pre-rendered version of a web page (ideal for search engine bots) and when to serve the normal client-rendered version (for users). This makes it especially useful for SPAs (Single Page Applications) built with frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular.
How Does Rendora Work?
Rendora sits between your web server (like Nginx or Apache) and frontend application, acting as a middle layer. Here’s how it functions:
Intercepts requests to your website.
Determines whether the request is from a search engine bot or a real user.
For bots, it serves a server-rendered (SSR) version of your page (via headless Chrome).
For users, it passes the request to the frontend app normally.
This allows your site to remain fast and dynamic for users while still being SEO-friendly for search engines like Google, which can struggle with JS-heavy pages.
Key Features of Rendora
⚙️ Automatic bot detection: Detects crawlers using user-agent matching.
🧠 Selective rendering: Renders only when necessary—configurable rules.
🌐 Headless Chrome integration: Renders full HTML snapshots of JS pages.
💨 Improves SEO: Ensures bots receive fully-rendered HTML content.
💻 Works with any SPA: Compatible with React, Angular, Vue, and more.
📦 Docker support: Easily deployable via Docker containers.
🛡️ Open-source: No licensing fees—community-supported.
Where Can Rendora Be Used?
📰 Blogs built with JavaScript frameworks
🛍️ E-commerce sites using dynamic frontend UIs
🏢 Business websites relying on React or Angular
🔎 Web apps that require better search engine indexing
🧩 Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
Benefits of Rendora for Bloggers and Freelancers
🚀 Boosts visibility: Ensures blog content is indexed properly by search engines.
🔧 No need to change your frontend: Continue using modern JS frameworks.
📉 Reduces bounce rate: Faster perceived load times improve user experience.
💡 Ideal for freelancing portfolios: Helps your work appear in search.
🆓 Free and customizable: Great for freelancers or small dev teams with tight budgets.
Is Rendora Free or Paid? (Pricing Overview)
Rendora is 100% free and open-source under the MIT License. You can:
Download and modify it freely
Deploy it in commercial or personal projects
Access the source code on GitHub: https://github.com/rendora/rendora
How to Use Rendora? (Step-by-Step Guide)
Install Docker (or Go if compiling from source).
Pull the Rendora Docker image:
bashdocker pull rendora/rendora
Create a configuration file (
rendora.toml
) to define rules (bot detection, render URL, cache, etc.).Run Rendora via Docker:
bashdocker run -v $(pwd)/rendora.toml:/etc/rendora/config.toml -p 3001:3001 rendora/rendora
Configure Nginx or your reverse proxy to route traffic through Rendora.
Test with Googlebot or Bingbot user agents to confirm SSR is working.
Comparison of Rendora with Other Tools
Tool | Key Focus | Pros | Cons |
---|---|---|---|
Rendora | On-the-fly SSR proxy | Fast, configurable, open-source | Requires Docker/Go setup |
Prerender.io | Cloud-based SSR | Easy setup, commercial support | Paid plans for high usage |
React Snap | Static site pre-rendering | Great for static exports | Not dynamic/on-the-fly |
Next.js (SSR) | Full SSR framework | Integrated SSR | Overkill for existing SPAs |
How to Make Money with Rendora?
💼 Offer SEO optimization services for SPA-based websites using Rendora.
🛠️ Bundle with freelance web development projects to add value.
📚 Sell Rendora setup/configuration guides or courses.
🔧 Create a SaaS offering based on Rendora as a hosted SEO enhancer.
👨💻 Contribute to Rendora or build plugins for niche use cases and monetize them.
Is Rendora Right for You? (Final Thoughts)
If you’re building or managing a JavaScript-heavy website and care about SEO performance, Rendora is an incredibly useful tool. It strikes a balance between fast user experience and SEO-friendly content delivery, without forcing you to rewrite your app or change your stack.
Whether you’re a blogger, freelancer, or small business owner, Rendora helps you unlock the full visibility potential of your content—all for free.