Comparison
PrefetchvsRoute prefetching
Prefetch
you fetched the next page's code at low priority while the user was still reading this one.
A hint that a resource will probably be needed for a future navigation, fetched at the lowest priority when the browser is idle. It is speculative by design, which makes it right for likely next steps and wrong for anything on the current page. Prefetching aggressively costs the user bandwidth and battery for pages they may never visit, which matters more on mobile than the timing charts suggest.
Full entry →Route prefetching
hovering the link quietly fetched the next route's code and data before the click landed.
Fetching the code and often the data for a likely next route ahead of the navigation, triggered by the link entering the viewport or by hover intent. It is what makes framework navigation feel instantaneous. Prefetching every visible link on a dense page is a real bandwidth cost, and prefetched data can be stale by the time the user clicks, so it needs a freshness policy.
Full entry →