On-Demand ISR for Next.js: Driving Instant Content Updates

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, content needs to move as quickly as your business does. Defaulting to Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) without considering the unique demands of your platform can slow you down, especially in CMS-driven environments where real-time updates aren't a luxury; they're a necessity. 

That’s where On-Demand ISR comes in. It ensures your content goes live the moment it’s published, dynamically regenerating only the pages that need it. No delays, no waiting, just fresh, up-to-date content delivered instantly to your audience and search engines like Google.

Achieving this outcome at scale, however, is complex and can often leave developers stuck. Luckily, we’ve built the solution for you as a service. 

What is On-Demand ISR?

Traditionally, Static Site Generation (SSG) creates pages during the build process. When a Next.js application is built, it pulls data from headless CMS platforms like Sitecore XM Cloud, generating pages based on published content at that time. This method works well for static content that rarely changes but falls short for dynamic CMS-driven websites where content updates are frequent. 

Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) partially solves this by revalidating pages based on a set timeout (e.g. 30mins or even hours). When a page request exceeds this limit, Next.js serves the cached version while refreshing the content in the background. The next visitor then sees the updated version. While helpful, this doesn’t offer real-time control, leaving gaps when content must be live immediately, such as for news articles, product launches, or urgent announcements. 

Why On-Demand ISR?

On-Demand ISR gives content editors the power to trigger updates instantly. Instead of waiting for a timeout, the CMS sends an event (via a webhook) to revalidate specific pages. This ensures that: 

• New content is visible immediately, even to the first visitor or search engine crawlers like Google 
• Editors control exactly when pages go live 
• Time-critical content reaches the audience without delay 

Challenges in Enterprise Environments

While powerful, implementing On-Demand ISR at scale can be complex. Challenges include: 

• Avoiding API throttling when rebuilding multiple pages 
• Identifying and revalidating dependent pages
• Managing page deletions or unpublishing
• Providing fallbacks for key pages during large-scale updates
• Dealing with multi-site support 
• Managing cache clearance and running post re-validation events

How Dataweavers Simplifies On-Demand ISR

At Dataweavers, we've productized an On-Demand ISR (ODISR) service that handles this complexity for you. Our solution ensures instant publishing with minimal effort: 

• Register our API as the publish webhook in your CMS
• Our service manages the logic, deciding which pages need revalidation
• Use our provided NPM package to connect with your Next.js app, ensuring pages update instantly
• With Dataweavers ODISR, content goes live the moment it’s published, delivering fast, reliable updates without the technical headaches. 

Availability

On-Demand ISR is built into our ARC for Sitecore front end rendering host by default, giving you out-of-the-box instant content updates.

Prefer a different stack? No problem. It’s also available as a standalone component that integrates seamlessly with Vercel and other popular platforms. We’re not stopping there, soon you’ll find it in the Azure Marketplace. 

Need more details? Let’s talk. We’re here to help you deliver content at the speed your business demands.