Next JS vs Gatsby JS – Which One To Choose in 2025?

Intro to Gatsby vs Next.js

Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Static Site Generator (SSG) have recently enabled us to create feature-rich, scalable React apps. They also gave rise to many possibilities for Gatsby and Next.js developers. Now both technologies are focused on a hybrid rendering approach, blending SSR, SSG, and Client-Site Rendering to offer the highest performance and flexibility. Today we will discuss a topic that has been very popular for a while: Next.js vs Gatsby.js, which is better for building modern web applications?

Performance in Gatsby and Next js

Gatsby and Next.js both have features that can improve website performance. The two frameworks use techniques like static site generation (SSG) and resource optimization to deliver fast-loading pages and improved user experiences.

Despite their shared focus on performance, their approaches differ. Gatsby emphasizes build-time optimizations, while Next.js combines multiple rendering strategies for a more versatile for dynamic applications.

Gatsby Performance

Gatsby has long been celebrated for its ability to produce highly performant static sites. Its build process, powered by GraphQL data layering and static site generation, results in websites that load incredibly fast, providing an SEO and user experience boost. Gatsby’s Deferred Static Generation further enhances performance by generating pages on-demand, thereby reducing build times for large-scale projects.

Performance Features of Gatsby

• Static Site Generation: Ensures quick load times by serving pre-built HTML and static assets.
• Image Optimization: Automatic image optimization for faster page loads.
• Deferred Static Generation (DSG): Reduces build times by generating pages only as needed.
• Partial Hydration: This feature ensures only interactive components on a page are hydrated with JavaScript, improving load times, and user experience.

Next.js Performance

Next.js has a reputation for delivering high-performance web applications thanks to a flexible hybrid rendering approach that combines server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG) with dynamic updates through Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR).

Unlike Gatsby, Next.js supports dynamic server-side functionality out of the box, allowing for real-time content updates and API handling without additional server setups. Features like middleware for edge functions allow developers to personalize responses and optimize performance at the network edge, further reducing latency for global audiences.

Performance Features of Next.js

• Server-Side Rendering (SSR): Dynamically generates pages on the server for every request, ensuring up-to-date content while maintaining fast delivery.
• Image Optimization: Automatically resizes, compresses, and serves images in modern formats like WebP for faster page loads and reduced bandwidth usage.
• Dynamic Routing: Provides built-in support for dynamic routes, enabling fast and efficient handling of complex, data-driven applications.
• Middleware for Edge Functions: Executes custom logic at the edge to enable low-latency, personalized responses, reducing server round trips and improving global performance.

Next.js Performance in Version 15

Next.js 15 continues to push the boundaries of modern web development, introducing features that streamline developer workflows, improve performance, and expand flexibility for complex use cases. Building on the strong foundations of versions 13 and 14, the latest release brings innovations that enhance scalability and interactivity:

• Turbo Mode: Builds on Turbopack with smarter caching and parallelized tasks, reducing development server start times and rebuilds for large projects.
• Expanded React Server Components: Further reduces client-side JavaScript by default, prioritizing efficient hydration strategies for interactive content.
• Improved Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR): ISR now has a faster fallback generation, reducing downtime when content is updated.
• Optimized App Directory: The App Router and the improved App Directory streamline nested layouts and component management, making large-scale applications more efficient to build and manage.

Similarities between Gatsby.js and Next.js

Both Next.js and Gatsby are great for building super-fast and SEO-friendly websites, and the decision about which one to choose is a matter of your project requirements. Let’s have a look at their similarities.

Performant and SEO-Friendly Websites.

Thanks to static site generator (SSG) and server-side rendering (SSR) in both Gatsby and Next.js, your web app can be indexed in Google much more easily. This enables you to attract many more visitors through organic search traffic. To rank higher:

• Your content needs to be well-written and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efficient,
• You need to provide a great user experience for your visitors,
• You need to take care of website speed metrics.

And this is where performance really matters.

Gatsby generates static HTML for final users and search engines, which is great for performance. However, the same thing is possible with Next JS.  Additionally, Next.js’s ISR and React Server Components provide a unique advantage for sites that frequently update content but still wish to maintain high SEO rankings. Its fast load times, interactive pages, and smooth transitions help achieve a positive user experience. Next.js’s advancements in reducing client-side JavaScript bloat can lead to more responsive interactions, potentially giving it an edge for highly dynamic, application-like websites.

“At first, our preference, as well as that of our clients, leaned more towards Gatsby. However, as we reached deeper, we discovered that Next.js offered an amazing blend of ease and power. It wasn’t long before both we and our clients recognized its effectiveness. Today, we proudly say that around 90% of our web development projects leverage Next.js. Its adaptability, performance, and simplicity make it not just a tool, but a main framework in our web development strategy, consistently delivering the most benefits to our clients.”

Jakub Dakowicz, CTO at Pagepro

Leveraging React with Gatsby and Next.js

Both Gatsby and Next harness the power of the React framework, bringing its component-based architecture to the forefront of web development. It allows developers to benefit from React’s ecosystem, including:

• Component-Based Approach: Facilitates reusable UI components, making development more efficient and modular.
• Rich Ecosystem of UI Kits: Offers a plethora of UI libraries and tools that can significantly accelerate the development process.
• Wide Developer Community: Ensures easy access to resources, support, and shared knowledge from a vast network of developers.
• Excellent Developer Experience (DX): React and its frameworks prioritize making the development process as smooth and enjoyable as possible.

So you may ask: why do I even need GatsbyJS or NextJS? isn’t React good enough?

While React provides a solid foundation for building dynamic user interfaces, it operates primarily on the client side. This limitation can impact SEO and initial page load performance, which is where Next js and Gatsby offer the extension of React’s capabilities.

Enhancing React with Gatsby and Next.js

Gatsby and Next.js address React’s client-side rendering limitation by offering advanced build and rendering strategies:

• Server-Side Rendering (SSR): Both frameworks allow for rendering components on the server, improving SEO and performance by delivering static HTML to the browser.
• Static Site Generation (SSG): They can pre-render pages at build time, which is excellent for performance and SEO.

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Simplifying Web Development

Another similarity between Gatsby vs Next.js is that those two frameworks provide a boilerplate, a fixed project structure that needs to be followed during the development. Having a boilerplate has many great advantages. For example:

• Complete documentation of the Next js or Gatsby site
• Better tooling,
• Easier setup,
• Better development experience,
• Easier project handover.

Thanks to that, both Gatsby and Next.js can significantly simplify and speed up the React app/website development cycle.

Key Differences Between Next.js and Gatsby

Time to compare the differences between Gatsby and Next.js.

Data Handling and Rendering Methods

Gatsby.js

Gatsby.js began as a static site generator (SSG), pre-rendering pages during the build process into static HTML and assets. It’s excellent for performance and SEO, since it delivers fully pre-rendered pages to the browser.

Over time, Gatsby has evolved to include server-side rendering (SSR) and client-side rendering (CSR) options. Starting in version 2.0, developers could use SSR for specific routes, allowing for dynamic content fetching on the server side while retaining the performance of pre-rendered static content.

Gatsby’s data layer is powered by GraphQL, enabling seamless integration with various data sources like CMSs, APIs, and databases. This GraphQL-based approach allows developers to fetch data during the build process and combine it with pre-rendered pages, making it both efficient and SEO-friendly. Gatsby also supports runtime data fetching for dynamic content using its Server Rendering APIs. Major features in recent versions include:

• Deferred Static Generation (DSG): Introduced in version 4.0, DSG enables pages to be deferred at build time and generated on demand during runtime. This approach reduces initial build times, especially for sites with a large number of pages.
• Slice API (Gatsby 4.0+): Shared components, like headers and footers, can be defined as “slices,” which are built once and reused across multiple pages. This reduces overall build times and optimizes updates to frequently used components.
• Partial Hydration: This feature minimizes the amount of JavaScript sent to the client by hydrating only the interactive parts of a page. This approach significantly improves performance for users while maintaining interactivity.
• Improved Developer Experience: Updates like GraphiQL v2 provide a modern GraphQL development environment with features such as dark mode, tabs, and a streamlined documentation explorer.

Next.js

On the other hand, Next js initially was a server-side rendering (SSR) tool, but since version 9.3 it also supports static site generation. But there’s more for Next.js, as it has an Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR), which allows you to create or update static pages after you’ve built your site. In other words, it makes building dynamic websites even easier.

In this case, Next.js is much more flexible, as he enables developers to decide themselves how to approach data fetching.

Next.js 15 took performance to the next level with:

• Turbo Mode: Builds on the Rust-based Turbopack, delivering 700x faster updates compared to Webpack and reducing development times significantly.
• Server Actions (Beta): Allows direct server-side data mutations from React components, simplifying workflows and reducing boilerplate.
• Middleware Enhancements: Improves server-side logic handling at the edge, offering even more precise control over routing and personalization.

The benefits of Next.js continue to grow with every release, making it an unmatched framework for building modern, high-performance web applications. Whether it’s an e-commerce platform, a content site, or a complex enterprise app, Next.js offers the tools and flexibility developers need to succeed.

Next.js 15 enhances Partial Prerendering with faster build times via Turbo Mode and seamless dynamic updates using Server Actions. Static content loads instantly, while dynamic elements like dashboards or shopping carts render in real time, delivering fast, interactive experiences without compromising performance.

Rafał Dąbrowski, Next.js Expert at Pagepro

Incremental Static Generation in Next.js and Gatsby’s Deferred Static Generation (DSG)

Deferred Static Generation (DSG) in Gatsby and Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) in Next.js are innovative approaches to optimizing web performance and developer experience for static site generation. Both aim to address the challenge of building and updating large sites efficiently, yet they approach the problem from slightly different angles.

Gatsby’s DSG allows developers to delay the generation of certain pages until they are requested, which can significantly reduce build times for sites with a large number of pages or infrequently accessed content. This means that pages not critical to the initial user experience can be generated on-demand, improving the scalability of static sites.

On the other hand, Next.js’s ISR offers a dynamic solution by allowing pages to be statically generated at build time and then revalidated (or regenerated) on a per-request basis with a specified frequency. This method ensures that the content remains up-to-date without necessitating a full rebuild of the site, providing a balance between static efficiency and dynamic content freshness.

While DSG focuses on optimizing the initial build process, ISR emphasizes content freshness and incremental updates, making each suited to different scenarios.

Community – Next.js or Gatsby? 

While both frameworks have their advantages, there is a huge difference between Next.js and Gatsby in the matter of popularity and developers pool, and we think that the numbers speak for themselves here:

According to npm trends, for the year, Next.js downloads have grown significantly while Gatsby stays on the rather same level.

Then we have an annual Stack Overflow Survey – in 2024 Next.js climbed to 4th place in the Best Web Frameworks and Technologies while Gatsby didn’t even reach the top 20.

On Github we also can see a huge predominance of Next.js, see the stats below:

From all of the stats and numbers, we see that Next.js is a more popular choice than Gatsby. As a result, the Next.js developers pool is bigger, so finding an experienced dev for your team is much easier

Plugins, Themes, Extensions, Integrations

Gatsby provides a rich plugin ecosystem, which can make your life a bit easier. It includes a wide variety of plugins for SEO, image optimization, data sourcing, and more and can significantly speed up the development time. 

On the other hand, Next encourages you to build everything by yourself, which gives you pretty much unlimited possibilities and freedom in the execution. But it doesn’t mean that it lacks support for third-party components. It also has a thriving ecosystem of third-party libraries and modules that can extend its functionality. Next.js philosophy is more focused on giving the user the flexibility to choose how to implement features, which leads to more customized projects. 

Best use cases for Next.js sites

Generally, NextJS is a better idea to choose when SSR becomes more important than SSG.

This is when:

• Content is frequently updated or needs to be always up-to-date
• You have a large, multi-user site like TikTok (real-time publishing)
• You can’t afford to rebuild the whole website (f.e. big eCommerce), as it would take ages to do it with SSG.

Complex Web Applications

Next.js is great for large-scale, complex applications that demand frontend and backend capabilities. Thanks to the full-stack functionality, developers can build scalable, feature-rich applications with amazing performance.

Example: TikTok

Advanced eCommerce Platforms

eCommerce platforms that need custom solutions and high-performance optimizations will benefit from Next.js. It supports complex product catalogs, facilitates integrations with payment systems, and improves user experience with fast-loading pages.

Example: Nike

Multi-Market Solutions

Applications serving multiple regions with varied content and languages can be complex to maintain. Next.js offers extensive internationalization features, which simplify managing and delivering localized content.

Example: Revolut

Real-world use cases of Gatsby Sites

The great source of Gatsby sites examples is Gatsby Showcase but to have a full picture of Gatsby features let us present you a few other examples.

Corporate Websites

Corporate websites, like landing pages, prioritize speed and rarely require frequent updates, making them ideal for static site generation. These sites typically display static content without user authentication or dynamic functionalities.

Example: Leaft Foods

B2B and SaaS Product Websites

For B2B and SaaS websites, the focus is on conversion through speed and user experience, which impacts bounce rates and organic traffic.

Example: Linktree

Personal Blogs

Personal blogs prioritize low hosting costs, easy editing, and strong SEO. Static site generators, like Gatsby, fit perfectly due to free hosting options like GitHub Pages, Netlify, and Vercel.

Example: Robin Wieruch’s Blog

Gatsby vs Next.js – Which Framework Should You Use?

While both Gatsby and Next.js are powerful frameworks, the choice depends on your project’s needs. Next.js is quickly becoming the go-to option across most areas, reflected in market trends and customer preferences.

If your goal is a blazing-fast static website that requires minimal updates, Gatsby.js is still a solid choice. Its out-of-the-box performance optimizations and plugin ecosystem make it ideal for simple, content-driven sites like blogs or landing pages.

However, if you need a fast, user-friendly site that demands frequent updates, dynamic content, or complex features, Next.js is the clear winner. Its hybrid approach—combining SSR, SSG, ISR, and client-side rendering—offers unmatched flexibility for building modern web applications.

Why We Recommend Next.js

• Flexibility in Data Fetching: Using Next.js allows you to fetch data however you like—REST, GraphQL, or custom APIs—unlike Gatsby’s GraphQL dependency.
• Faster Development Cycles: Custom API routes and full-stack capabilities streamline workflows.
• Better Hosting Options: Vercel’s seamless deployment and lower costs outperform Gatsby Cloud.
• Wide Community and Documentation: A vibrant community and up-to-date resources make problem-solving easier and faster.
• Superior Dynamic Rendering: While Gatsby also offers SSR, Next.js leads with innovations like React Server Components, Partial Prerendering, and Turbo Mode.

Fun fact: We built our website with Next.js, and we’re seeing more clients choosing it for new web apps and platforms. Its versatility, performance, and developer experience make it the framework of choice for modern web development.

The Verdict

For static websites with minimal updates, Gatsby remains a strong contender. But for anything requiring dynamic content, scalability, or frequent updates, we recommend Next.js.

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