HTTP rendering engine
The HTTP rendering engine uses a remote rendering host for server-side rendering applications built with the ASP.NET Rendering SDK and the JavaScript Rendering SDK (JSS). The communication between the Sitecore Content Management (CM) instance and a rendering host is performed through HTTP calls.
Applications built using JSS for Next.js use this rendering engine by default and require no additional configuration.
Using the rendering engine with applications built with the ASP.NET Rendering SDK requires some configuration.
The HTTP rendering engine is available in Sitecore 9.1.1 and later.
Pros and cons of the HTTP rendering engine
Pros
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You have full control over the rendering host management: startup, pooling, clustering, profiling, debugging, and so on.
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With the help of tunneling software like Ngrok, front-end developers can test Experience Editor integration by using their local headless apps for server-side rendering. This is possible by dynamically setting the rendering host URL in the Experience Editor with the help of the
sc_httprenderengineurlquery string parameter. -
For JSS applications, you do not need to have Node.js on the Sitecore server. You choose where to host the rendering host.
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You do not have to deploy artifacts of applications created with the JSS to the Sitecore Content Management (CM) server.
Cons
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You must control the rendering host yourself and ensure it is awake and always available.