What Is Blazor?

Blazor applications are composed of components that are constructed using C#, HTML-based Razor syntax, and CSS.

Blazor has two different runtime modes: server-side Blazor and client-side Blazor. Client-side Blazor is also known as Blazor WebAssembly. Both modes run in all modern web browsers, including web browsers on mobile phones.

Server-side Blazor

Figure 2: Server-Side Blazor
© BlazorHelpWebsite.com—used with permission

Server-side Blazor renders the Razor components on the server and updates the webpage using a SignalR asynchronous connection. The Blazor framework sends events from the web browser, such as button clicks and mouse movements, to the server. The Blazor runtime computes changes to the components on the server and sends a diff-based webpage back to the browser.

Client-side (WebAssembly)

Figure 3: Client-Side Blazor (WebAssembly)
© BlazorHelpWebsite.com - used by permission

Client-side Blazor is composed of the same code as server-side Blazor; however, it runs entirely in the web browser using a technology known as WebAssembly.

The primary difference in Blazor applications created in server-side Blazor versus client-side Blazor is that the client-side Blazor applications need to make web calls to access server data, whereas the server-side Blazor applications can omit this step, as all their code is executed on the server.

One way to think of Blazor is that it is a framework for creating SPA webpages using one of two architectures (client-side, server-side), using Razor technology written with the C# language.

Because client-side Blazor with WebAssembly executes entirely on a user's browser, for many applications, client-side Blazor is very fast.

When Oqtane is deployed, it can be run as client-side Blazor or as server-side Blazor.

The Syncfusion Help Desk sample application covered in this book can be run as server-side or client-side Blazor.