Server side pagination is better for:
- Large data set
- Faster initial page load
- Accessibility for those not running JavaScript
- Complex view business logic
- Resilience to concurrent changes
Client side pagination is better for:
- Small data set
- Faster subsequent page loads
- Sort & filter requirements supported fully (unless results greater than max size).
To sum up, if you’re paginating for primarily cosmetic reasons, it makes more sense to handle it client side. And if you’re paginating to reduce initial load time, server side is the obvious choice. Of course, client side’s advantage on subsequent page load times diminishes if you utilize Ajax to load subsequent pages.
