Server‑Side Rendering, Templates, and CFML: History, Use Cases, and Code Examples

In the early Internet era of 1995, the Web consisted mainly of static HTML pages, which caused repetitive manual editing and even health issues for developers; this motivated the creation of server‑side scripting languages such as PHP that could dynamically generate HTML.

The core idea of server‑side web technology is template‑based rendering: the server interprets a template for each HTTP request, substitutes predefined tags with data from databases or other sources, and outputs a complete HTML page.

The author argues that even by 2025 server‑side rendering will still be a viable choice for scenarios where UI responsiveness is not critical, data collection is minimal, and complex client‑side interactions are unnecessary, making it an efficient and cost‑effective solution.

For content‑focused sites with low update frequency—such as editorial magazines or blogs—using simple server‑side rendered HTML can save resources; pre‑rendered pages combined with CDN caching further improve load speed while serving many users at low cost.

Content‑centric sites like blogs, news portals, or online libraries usually do not need sophisticated responsive UIs; serving static HTML via a CDN is often optimal, though it limits user interaction and dynamic input.

In contrast, social media, e‑commerce platforms, online banking, and internal enterprise systems require rich, responsive interfaces and complex navigation, for which modern JavaScript frameworks such as Angular and React are better suited.

When a project falls between static content sites and complex web apps, the simplest approach is to let the browser render plain HTML—sending full pages or fragments directly—while server‑side languages like PHP or other backend technologies generate the HTML on demand.

Server‑side web development typically involves close collaboration among designers, front‑end developers (HTML/CSS), and back‑end developers; HTML is often organized into reusable template components that can be nested to produce complete pages.

The author proposes a “Content Format Markup Language” (CFML) as an HTML extension that adds new tags prefixed with cf , enabling server‑side interpretation while keeping the markup familiar.

Basic operations in CFML include variable assignment, output, conditionals, and loops. Example code snippets illustrate these concepts:

<cfset username = "Sly Fox" />

Variables are output using the <cfoutput> tag, which encloses the content to be rendered:

<cfoutput>Hello, #username#</cfoutput>

Conditional logic follows an if‑else style wrapped in CFML tags:

<cfif username eq "">
  Please login
<cfelse>
  <cfoutput>Hello, #username#</cfoutput>
</cfif>

Loops can be expressed with <cfloop> for numeric ranges or arrays, as shown below:

<cfloop from="1" to="100" index="i">
  <cfoutput>#i# <br /></cfoutput>
</cfloop>

<cfloop array="#arrayVariable#" item="i">
  <cfoutput>#i# <br /></cfoutput>
</cfloop>

CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language) has been around for over two decades as the scripting language for Adobe ColdFusion servers; it also supports CFScript, a JavaScript‑like scripting syntax, and offers a rich set of tags and functions.

While commercial ColdFusion licenses are expensive, open‑source alternatives such as Lucee and the 2024‑released BoxLang provide free, container‑friendly runtimes that can be deployed on personal machines, Docker, or cloud instances.

The author encourages readers to explore CFML documentation, noting its simplicity, mature ecosystem, MVC frameworks, active community, and seamless cloud deployment, making it a practical choice for rapid server‑side rendered websites.

In 2024 PHP remains strong thanks to faster interpreters and popular frameworks like Laravel and Symfony, whereas ColdFusion’s visibility is lower but still supported by frameworks such as ColdBox and FW/1.

Given these trends, the author believes server‑side HTML rendering will continue to be valuable in 2025 and beyond.