There are cases when server-side rendering (without SPA) is easier and faster. For example: documentation sites, blog-like sites, internet stores, sites like Hacker News. In all these cases, you can save on development time by writing just one application instead of two (server and client), and improve performance (no need to load multimegabyte JS applications and make multiple AJAX requests to display a page).
Of course, there are cases when SPA-style application is better, for example: (graphic/circuit/text) editors, IDEs, mobile newsfeed-based apps - everything that resembles an app rather than a page with text, menus and images. But in these cases you usually don't need server-side rendering. And sometimes you cannot even use it - for example, if your code needs to know browser windows size to arrange objects on the page.
So I think that SSR (running JS on server) is rarely useful.
Of course, there are cases when SPA-style application is better, for example: (graphic/circuit/text) editors, IDEs, mobile newsfeed-based apps - everything that resembles an app rather than a page with text, menus and images. But in these cases you usually don't need server-side rendering. And sometimes you cannot even use it - for example, if your code needs to know browser windows size to arrange objects on the page.
So I think that SSR (running JS on server) is rarely useful.