[jotto]

A "static site" implies HTML rather than a JavaScript app.

With respect to JavaScript apps (React, Angular, etc.):

It's not clear these days because the major search engines don't explicitly clarify whether they parse JavaScript apps (or if they only parse high-ranking JS apps/sites. But 10 years ago it was a must-have to be indexed.

One theory on pre-rendering is it reduces cost for the crawlers since they don't need to spend 1-3s of CPU time pre-rendering your site. And by reducing costs, it may increase chances of being indexed or higher rank.

My hunch is that long-term, pre-rendering is not necessary for getting indexed. But it is typically still necessary for URL unfurls (link previews) for various social media and chat apps.

disclosure: I operate https://headless-render-api.com

[nirvanist]

absolutly , bots still need to access content as faster as possible