Legacy prerendering migration guide

[Gehrig]

Legacy prerendering is deprecated: here’s the schedule, and what to know.

On December 16th we announced the deprecation of our existing prerendering feature - in favour of two new prerendering extensions that provide much improved visibility and control, which you can choose from.

Here’s the deprecation timeline, by plan:

• Free plans (legacy or credit-based), legacy Starter - January 27, 2026 (previously: January 20)
• Personal, Pro (legacy or credit-based) - February 17, 2026
• Enterprise and specialized plans - March 17, 2026

How does that impact me?

This section will guide you in:

1. First, finding out which projects you have that may be using the legacy feature.

2. For the projects that do - whether they actually need prerendering (many don’t).

3. How to migrate the ones that need it - and what to do about the ones that don’t (basically: no action is required).

Check which projects use legacy prerendering

In your account’s Projects page, any project currently using the legacy prerendering feature will have a warning icon with a tooltip. This warning also appears in the overview page of any relevant project.

The tooltip provides a direct link to the relevant configuration section for disabling the feature. But before you do, please read on to learn whether a migration is necessary.

Verify which projects actually need prerendering

Not all sites require prerendering. In many cases we’ve seen, prerendering was turned on by customers for sites without any need. In such cases, prerendering only adds complexity.

You can evaluate the need for your site using this handy tool:

https://do-you-need-prerender.netlify.app/

If the tool indicates prerendering is not actually needed: No need to do anything! Legacy prerendering will soon automatically be disabled for the site on the deprecation date above, needing no action from you.

If one or more of your projects needs prerendering: Continue to choose the migration option that’s right for you.

Migration options

Option 1: Netlify Prerender extension

Best for: simple, self-serve setups

• Community support

• Good configurability for most common needs

• Uses Netlify Edge Functions and Functions

• Full visibility via logs and metrics

Note: requires an up-to-date Node.js version (22.x) to be used in the project.

Option 2: Prerender.io extension (for complex and high-volume setups)

Best for: business-critical, proxy-based, or complex configurations

• Vendor-level support

• Advanced configuration and reliability

• Recommended for Enterprise use cases

How to migrate

Step 1: Install your chosen prerendering extension

The installation is needed for each team you have (most customers have only one).

Installation does not automatically start to apply prerendering to any project though - you decide for which projects to enable it.

• Netlify Prerender extension

• Prerender.io extension

Step 2: Disable legacy prerendering for your projects

The warning tooltip next to any relevant project names will direct you to the relevant configuration page, or you can manually go to: Project configuration → Build & deploy → Post processing → Prerendering

In the configuration page, click Configure to disable the legacy prerendering feature. This applies immediately.

Step 3: Enable the extension for your projects and deploy

For each project that requires it, enable prerendering and save the configuration. Here’s what do to for Netlify’s own extension:

Ensure the project is using an up-to-date Node version (22.x)

Projects older than one year may have a previous Node.js version - that has already reached End-of-Life (EOL) and known to cause issues with up-to-date headless browsers.

In your latest deploy log, you can see the actual Node.js used in the Initializing section:

If the Node.js version is older than v22.x.x, this is because an older version specified in either:

• Project Configuration → Build & Deploy → Dependency Management, or
• In an environment variable (NODE_ENV) under Project Configuration → Environment Variables, or
• In a netlify.toml configuration file at the root of your project

Enable the extension for the project

1. From a specific project’s page, click on Netlify Prerender Extension at the bottom-left of the page.

2. Check Enable Prerendering, then scroll down to click Save.

3. Trigger a new deploy of your project from the Deploys page

Once the extension is enabled and the new deploy is live - crawlers, AI agents, and preview services will receive prerendered HTML, while normal visitors continue to receive your JavaScript app.

To monitor: you will be able to start seeing any prerendering requests in your Function & Edge function logs, and view metrics in Function Metrics or Observability (depending on your plan).

What happens if I do nothing?

In any case, regular site visitors using a browser would not be impacted in any way.

After the deprecation date (which depends on your plan), Netlify will stop serving specially pre-rendered pages to crawlers and AI agents. It will simply serve content normally to all client types.

For a site which does need prerendering, that may hurt discoverability in search (especially in current AI search/answer engines, e.g. ChatGPT).

The available extensions provide that functionality, with self-serve configuration and visibility options that were not available before.

Learn more

• Netlify Prerender extension documentation

• Prerender.io integration

• Blog: Prerendering: an old trick that’s new again

• Do you need prerendering?

Need help?

If you have questions or need assistance with migration, contact Netlify support.

[anthonygreco]

why is the email so vague?!?! how do we determine if we even have prerendering enabled? i have spent an hour just trying to make sense of this. the only thing i see about prerendering is on the build and deploy → post processing section, but it mentioned beta which would indicate that this is the NEW feature. i can’t find anything to reference an old one? we need much more clarity in this ASAP.

[apolaine]

I agree with anthonygreco - this is really poorly explained and the Analyser app just fails when checking my site.

[broavi]

What worked for me: Take screenshots of the email and your Netlify dashboards, throw them at Google Gemini, receive solution.

[anthonygreco]

neat how you decided to leave the answer out of your response for the rest of us. and for what it’s worth i tried exactly this using chatgpt, gemini and grok and none of them could give me a clear explanation. they even went on to agree with all the messaging here that it’s entirely too vague to definitively know the answer without communicating with the provider. i wonder how long this thread will go before we all start migrating everything to https://vercel.com/

[broavi]

Seemed straightforward enough for anyone to do, but here you go.

```
Based on the Netlify migration guide and the deprecation notice, here is the exact step-by-step process you need to follow.

Since today is January 6, 2026, and the deadline is January 20, 2026, you should do this right now to avoid your site dropping out of search results or breaking for social media previews.

The migration is purely a configuration change in your Netlify dashboard. You do not need to change your website code.

Phase 1: Disable the Old Setting

1. Log in to your Netlify Dashboard.
2. Select the site mentioned in the email.
3. Go to Site Configuration (or “Site Settings”) > Build & Deploy.
4. Scroll down to the Prerendering section.
5. Find the Legacy Prerendering toggle and switch it to Off (Disable).

Phase 2: Enable the New Extension

1. Stay in your project dashboard.
2. Look at the left-hand sidebar. Near the bottom, you should see a link for “Netlify Prerender Extension” (or “Extensions”).
   • If you don’t see it there, go to the “Extensions” tab in the main menu and search for “Prerender”.
3. Click the extension and select Enable prerendering.
4. Save the changes.

Phase 3: The Most Important Step

1. Trigger a new deploy.
   • Go to the Deploys tab.
   • Click “Trigger deploy” → “Deploy site”.
2. Wait for the build to finish.

Once the new deploy is live, your site is fully migrated. The new system uses “Edge Functions” to serve pre-rendered content to Google/Social Media bots, which is faster and more reliable than the old legacy system.
```

[anthonygreco]

thanks - that was helpful. i don’t see any legacy prerendering section at all so i presume i never used it? still a bit vague though and really wish an employee of the company would reach out with clarifications. furthermore - as another mentioned here, how are they going to just mass email and not also let us know which sites are affected. such very poor customer experience.

[davidvalentinexoxo]

Same; I don’t see the legacy rendering.

In fact, I see Prerendering under Project Configuration with “Enable prerendering with Netlify” already checked. So, I’m somewhat confused here as well tbh.

[anthonygreco]

interesting - that makes me wonder if they tried to do a migration themselves and it wasn’t entirely successful which led to the “not so well informed” email.

[flouroux]

Very confusing and dumb.

First, no real instruction. Second, not even saying which websites actually have pre-rendering enabled. Third, the URL for the checker in the post is broken.

But even if you go through all that, it just doesn’t work.

Literally me right now:

1. Have a website without pre-rendering extension
2. Ask ChatGPT what can it see
3. It can see the overall structure as expected
4. Turn on the pre-rendering extension
5. Re-deploy
6. Send URL to Chatgpt
7. “I attempted to fetch the raw content, but the server did not return any readable HTML when accessed directly — it timed out or failed to load the page source. Because of this, I cannot produce the actual text or visible rendered content from a direct fetch of the page.”

Very cool experience, 10/10.

[davidvalentinexoxo]

Okay I went through the instructions and below is what I did. However, the prerendering is still failing. I made a video and you can watch it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yf54awFrXaoXLwz3VIFSMNg_cX6P2P2c/view?usp=sharing

1: Project configuration - Build & deploy → Post processing → Prerendering → Click Configure and uncheck the “Enable prerendering with Netlify” (this is what I’m assuming the legacy one)

2: Install either the Netlify Prerender extension (that’s what I installed) or the Prerender.io extension

3: Next, I went to Project Overview and to my Extension. Then, I enabled it and saved it.

4: Finally, I went to “Deploys” and triggered a deployment.

Now, when I go to my project / website, and then go to test the extension, using this guide, and reload, the Prerender fails. Anything in my steps that is wrong?

[lolbox]

So… pre-rendering is now a $$ charged add-on? The new pre-render extension is using edge and serverless functions which you charge for. Or is the extension actually free and you just forgot to confirm that?

The lack of clarity tells me it’s NOT free, and you’re choosing to play dumb-face with that fact.

You have the right to turn free stuff off, but for us the fact that pre-rendering was “bundled” was part of what made us choose Netlify. If you’re force shoveling everyone into your paid edge/serverless functions that’s fine, but have the balls/decency/courage to actually disclose this.

It’s not that you’re charging for stuff you once offered free, it’s HOW you’re doing this. We’ll be taking our business elsewhere.

[elad.rosenheim]

Hey folks!
Product Manager from Netlify here.

First, we’ve fixed the link to the prerender analyzer in the original message, but here it is here as well: https://do-you-need-prerender.netlify.app/

Second, we’re working on making this transition smoother (and already making the UI clearer). If necessary, we’ll extend the deprecation timeline.

I also want to address the cost issue:

The extension utilizes Netlify Function and Edge Function invocations, just like any function you write yourself (that’s how extensions work) - this is also what enables detailed logging and observability which were not available at all before. For the vast majority of accounts with sites using prerendering, these added invocations are well within the existing monthly quota - even for free users. There’s no added or special cost on top of these invocations.

Meanwhile, and for the duration of this migration, I’m here to answer questions and concerns.

[bluesky]

Can you confirm

1. If everyone got the email or just the people who need to migrate
2. How to tell if one of our sites needs to migrate without looking at every one

Thanks!

[elad.rosenheim]

Hey,
the emails were sent out only to accounts with at least one project having prerendering enabled.

A label should appear in the UI soon for all relevant projects.

[bluesky]

Thanks! It would have been nice to have that in the ui before the email goes out.

However, I love Netlify and have used the free tier for years with only the rare problem. So I appreciate what you offer.

[elad.rosenheim]

Thanks. It should actually have been added to the UI prior to the message. This was missed during the release.

[elad.rosenheim]

Hey all, relevant projects are now much easier to identify in the UI. We’ve updated the guide above to more clearly articulate the migration process.

[elad.rosenheim]

Hey @anthonygreco, please check if the updated UI and guide (above) are more helpful now - they should be.

[bluesky]

Please, just give us the link to the guide so we don’t waste more time. Edit: Ah, you mean the original post in this thread, eh? OK.

From looking at the image it seems you need to open each project? Edit: Ah, now I see there is an icon.