Multi page vs Single Page Applications - Which One Is Right For You?!

The Web Development ecosystem just keeps going in a circle. Up until the year or two, Single Page Applications (SPAs) were the default way to be build web apps, BUT now we are getting back to a heavier focus on leveraging the server over the browser when possible. In comes, Multi Page Applications (MPAs).

MPAs typically perform a full page refresh when navigating between pages, submitting forms, etc. Let's compare and contrast SPAs and MPAs and see which one makes the most sense in different scenarios.

**DISCORD**

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**QUESTIONS ABOUT MY SETUP**

[houseandhobby]

A key factor in the decision of whether to go single-page is whether it is a "site", or is it an "app". There is a difference. A site needs seo more than an app. An app can be supplemented with a multi-page site that features the app. Also, with spa permissions gateways can and should be done on the server side; session management enables this to be accomplished.

[nested]

just combine both of them i notice that with E commerce apps some pages is constantly needs fresh data from the server so i mixed both multi page and single page

[faifad]

I was having trouble getting out of the initial hype I felt when learning about SPA and actually make an objective decision on what I would do for my web app. This helped alot thank you!

[millennialsdev]

But in the Spa for example in Vue, we have the Lazy Loading Routes where there is the concept of "Chunk", the js is splitted

[christopheanfry]

Fantastic explanation!!! As you mentioned it’s clearly the time when island architecture is coming very strong as a developer and user experience, and I have to talk again about fresh which is also amazing as Astro does for static site, but with the ability of the route folder structure of nextjs + the island architecture for dynamic renders or state. Really hard to find our way in this “war” between ssr or csr, with the explosion of react it was the new way to go but it has shown some limits and we go back to ssr with amazing new frameworks like also qwick which is doing a great job with its signals system. That’s all amazing and so interesting and good to have a clear explanation as yours that comforts my thoughts and understandings 👍👍👍

[wolfson]

I like to write an MPA in Django and then use Vue for building interactivity inside a page if needed. Nice thing about Django is you can write a combination of templates and REST endpoints for the same set of models. So if I want to have faster initial load I can populate initial data on the server side and then have Vue call the API whenever the data needs to be updated.

[aaronholt]

Really liked this and appreciated the content. Easy to follow so thanks for that. 👌

[chaitu]

A very much needed intro. Resolved many confusions that I have.
Thank you very much for the video.

[dimarak]

At the end you mentioned SEO as a reason to use MPA.
SSR and SSG in Next.js f.ex. using Server Components allows also to add SEO tags to the Html BEFORE it is sent to the user. This can be done for each route so that for home or any other route the meta tags are already included because the server already handled the rendering of the html.

Also authentication can be handled fully serverside.
One can simply read out the cookies from the request and check if the user is authenticated on tje server BEFORE sending/responding with the respective content.
So the benefits of MPAs can all be included in SPA architectures as well so there is almost NEVER really a good reason to use MPA over SPA.

[rogerwaters]

Great use of visual explanation. Make things very clear =D

[cachipum]

sometimes you can't choose... for example deploying things like "decentralized" frontends, where it does not exist a SSR concept, so SPAs will continue being improved, in things like SEO, performance, and usability, I think on the future both MPAs and SPAs will be on par but highly specialized in solving their challenges

[motoboy]

Very clear and great visualisation, thanks dude! 🎉

[charlesscholton]

I am favor of generating Static Web pages and then using JS for data islands or SPA like features that dynamically Morph a static into a Spa. So in the case if feedback from, the submission is posted without page reload and the main content area changes state without leaving page. What is key is to regenerate statics only when the important data changes. I am in favor of having the server generate statics instead of having to recompile and upload a website.

[alexch]

James. I usually do multi page applications. Using node and vue inside html without vue cli. It is fast and easy to update and add new features. what do you think?

[Brofix_]

What about things like Phoenix LiveView or Laravel Livewire?

[Whatever]

If I need a website where there will be 10 tabs, each one of them would be a JS heavy page. Will only submit to the server if data needs to be saved.
Can I somehow create a website that has 10 SPA? Like I will load tab1, but not the other tabs until the user choses another tab.

[aymaneharmaz]

Can mpa be used with a micro-services on the backend ?

[aioz]

I do not know whether I am making a sound decision about SPA or MPA here in this case where I have to build a portfolio website for an artist who wants to showcase art work. To the most part it is their artwork as pictures and description in texts which are visible to the visitors of the webpage.

After seeing this explanation I believe it is MPA where I can use Django to build the webpage. But as an artist will there be an expectation for user experience? In that case then front end should be handled by dedicated JavaScript library like React or any other front end framework like Angular.

I still do not know. I am just guessing. If someone can help me with this it will be adding value to my decision making process. Thanks for the video. It was a good learning experience.

[bmind]

Transitional Apps with SvelteKit best of all worlds.

[kenneth.topp.]

Javascript is so fad driven they had to rename the old way for people to think its the new thing to do.