One of the top benefits of learning what is Next.js is the knowledge of how flexible you can become in building, and adapting to online reality. Internally as the provider of Next js development services, we think it’s the single most important advantage in software development, as we can quickly try and test our ideas. If we succeed, we can easily add new features and react to changes much faster than ever before to stay competitive. If not, it’s easier to rebuild the entire strategy and adapt accordingly.
Another thing is the way we buy today. That also went crazy.
We have become much more demanding when it comes to page loading speed (in milliseconds!) and the user experience from using websites or web shops.
That creates a perfect opportunity for companies that decided to trust modern technologies, like React.js, or have chosen the way of the Jamstack approach.
It allows you to build both simple and complex web applications much faster, and easier, and thanks to many great frameworks that have grown upon it, you can now build blazingly fast websites to achieve a much better UX and SEO efficiency.
Let’s have a look at one of those frameworks – Next.js, which enjoys growing popularity and quickly became the first choice for many big names and companies.
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What is Next.js?
Next.js is a JavaScript framework that encourages you to build superfast and extremely user-friendly static websites, as well as web applications using React.
This feature allows Next js framework to build hybrid applications that contain both server-side rendered and statically generated pages.
In other words,
Statically generated pages are still reactive: Next.js will hydrate your application client-side to give it full interactivity.
This opens us many advantages like:
Rich User Experience (easier and faster)
Great performance (also easier and faster)
Rapid feature development
Next.js is widely used by the biggest and most popular companies all over the world like Netflix, Uber, Starbucks, and Twitch. It’s also considered one of the fastest-growing React frameworks, perfect to work with static sites – which has been the hottest topic in the web development world lately.
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In recent years, Next.js framework has witnessed a huge rise in popularity.
According to the Stack Overflow survey of 2023, it climbed from the 11th to the 6th most popular framework among web developers. This rapid growth highlights its increasing use and effectiveness among web developers.
Over the years, Next.js has continuously evolved, introducing features that address the changing needs of both web users and web developers. Its updates have always focused on improving performance, and developer experience, and providing rich SEO capabilities.
Next.js 14 – A Leap Forward
Next.js 14 came to life with new capabilities and advancements of the features that were brought to life in Next.js 13.
Turbopack replaces Webpack for faster builds, offering much quicker server start-up and refresh rates. It leads to higher developer productivity and faster iteration cycles, which are crucial for large-scale applications.
Server Actions (Stable) streamlines server-side logic, allowing functions to run securely on the server. It simplifies data mutation workflows and strengthens application security. And we all know how important it is for handling sensitive data and complex state management scenarios.
Partial Prerendering (Preview) merges the benefits of SSR, SSG, and ISR. It enables quick initial static loading with dynamic content streaming. And any provider of apps requiring both fast loading times and dynamic content rendering loves it.
Metadata Improvements: Next js 14 automates the inclusion of essential metadata in the initial page load, ensuring a seamless user experience across devices and themes.
Next.js 14 brought some game-changing features. Turbopack, for example, has significantly speed up server startup and code refresh times. Then there’s Server Actions, making mutations more efficient and integrated. And let’s not forget Partial Prerendering, which is still in preview but looks promising for dynamic content handling.
Rafal Dabrowski, Next.js Expert at Pagepro
Best from Next.js 13
React Server Components (RSC): Reduces the client-side bundle size by rendering components server-side, directly accessing the backend. It’s great for performance optimization, reducing initial load times and strengthening SEO capabilities.
Middleware provides granular control over the request-response lifecycle, enabling refined server-side logic like A/B testing and request manipulation. It’s admired for customizing user experience and implementing complex server-side logic efficiently.
Edge Functions: By running server-side code at the network’s edge, Edge Functions minimize latency, offering a serverless experience. It’s needed in applications requiring high performance and low response times, particularly for global user bases.
App Router: A real star among these improvements! It changes the routing system in Next.js framework, and supports advanced features like nested routes and layouts. It’s a more flexible and powerful way to structure applications, crucial for large-scale and complex web projects.
Next.js and Jamstack
Next.js is now one of the most popular React frameworks for building superfast, and super SEO-friendly Jamstack websites.
It can be perfectly combined with headless CMSes, or eCommerce platforms to drive extraordinary performance and SEO results.
Jamstack’s rise in web development has been great, and Next.js is a big part of that story. Its architecture, really aligns with what we need in modern web development: focus on speed, security, and scalability. As more businesses and developers adopt it, Jamstack’s role in web development is only getting stronger.
Jakub Dakowicz, CTO at Pagepro
If you want to learn more, we always recommend starting with our guide – What is Jamstack?
On top of that, we made a short video that may help you decide whether you should use Jamstack architecture for your project, or not:
What is Next.js used for?
With Next.js you can build a number of digital products and interfaces such as:
And we love to use it in various projects since it gives us so many possibilities. Check out how it influenced the e-learning platform we were recently launching for our customer – Learn Squared:
LEARN SQUARED CASE STUDY
How to migrate an outdated e-learning platform from Drupal to Jamstack
At the heart of our decision to use Next.js for our website lies a combination of strategic factors and practical benefits.
We can admit, that SEO Optimization is one of the main reasons – we work on SEO improvements daily, as organic is our main source of traffic.
Equally crucial is Page Speed for us. This framework’s efficiency in loading times elevates the user experience and also, again, fortifies our SEO efforts.
For Content Management, using the Jamstack architecture with Next.js gave us full flexibility, allowing our marketing team to choose tools like Storybook for dynamic content management.
Lastly, our developers love to work with Next.js! They admire its efficiency and scalability, and, of course, a wide support community around it, that provides an added layer of assurance and continuous learning.
Next.js and User Experience
User experience plays a key role in the success (or failure) of digital businesses.
For example, if you have an online shop and you don’t take care of UX properly, it will result in:
Losing customers
Abandoned carts
High bounce rate
The design is also important – if you are using themes or templates, the chances are someone out there has a similar-looking layout. It also means that you can’t build a unique customer experience and change it over time. Even if this means changing one simple thing like adding a button to the product page or deleting one.
Luckily – thanks to Next.js – you can build a fully customized user experience. Let’s see what it really means.
UX Freedom: Next.js allows developers to avoid the restrictions of plugins, templates, or other limitations typically imposed by CMS platforms. Technically, this is facilitated by Next.js’s flexible file-system routing and its support for various CSS-in-JS libraries, enabling a high degree of customization in the frontend design.
Adaptability and Responsiveness: Built-in features such as automatic image optimization and responsive loading enable the devs to create web applications that are adaptable to any screen size or resolution. It is further supported by the smooth integration with modern CSS frameworks.
Short Page Load Time: Next.js’s capability for static site generation (SSG) and incremental static regeneration (ISR) plays a crucial role in achieving faster page load times. They enable serving pre-rendered pages to users, reducing the time to the first byte (TTFB) and repairing the overall site speed.
Data Security: In the context of static websites built with Next.js, the lack of a direct database connection reinforces security. It minimizes the exposure of sensitive data and dependencies, making these sites more secure against common web vulnerabilities.
All of these things mentioned above make the user experience as great as it can possibly be.
But the benefits of using Next.js don’t end there.
Next.js and SEO
Another big reason to choose Next.js is its SEO efficiency, and here’s why:
Server-Side Rendering (SSR): One of the most noteworthy benefits of Next.js is its use of SSR. It ensures that the full content of your page is rendered on the server before it reaches the user’s browser. Search engines can crawl and index your site content more effectively, boosting your visibility in search results.
Static Site Generation (SSG): Next.js is amazing at generating static sites, which are faster and more reliable. Static sites load quicker, offering a better user experience, a factor that search engines, particularly Google, prioritize highly.
Speed and Performance: Next.js websites are known for their amazing speed, a result of static generation and optimized code. Fast-loading sites reduce bounce rates, keep users engaged longer, and are favoured by search engines.
Organic Traffic and High-Intent Keywords: By optimizing for speed and user experience, Next.js helps to increase organic traffic. Its ability to rank high-intent keywords higher than competitors makes it a preferred choice for businesses aiming to be more visible to potential customers.
In both cases, it will help you a lot with:
Growing organic trafficfaster
Ranking your high-intent keywordshigher
Outperforming competitors easier
Be more visible to potential customers
Next.js websites are super-fast, easy to scan, and provide a great user experience and that’s why Google will favour them above others and rank them higher.
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Rich Ecosystem: Next.js benefits from the wide adoption of JavaScript and strong support from industry giants like Vercel and Meta. It offers a rich talent pool and ease of learning.
Future-Proof Technology: With regular updates and support from community and industry leaders, Next.js represents a future-proof solution in web development. Additionally, its alignment with the latest web standards makes it a strategic asset for long-term business goals and technology roadmaps.
Easy Scalability: Next.js supports scalability through features like automatic code splitting, flexible rendering options, and optimized image handling. These features ensure efficient resource utilization and performance under high traffic.
High Security: Offering a wide range of tools for building secure web applications, Next.js addresses critical areas like authentication and data validation. It is crucial for maintaining user trust and data integrity in the face of growing number of cyber threats.
Performance Optimization: Key features like lazy loading, image optimization, code splitting, and route prefetching in Next.js positively influence site performance.
Benefits of Next.js for online businesses
How Next.js can positively impact your business results and help you push your ideas further?
Faster time to market: many ready-to-use components and compatibility that come with it make building MVP much faster. Thanks to it, you can get feedback from real users quickly and make proper changes without wasting time and budget.
Better User Experience: you have total freedom to create a front-end that fully aligns with your business goals and design vision. Thanks to it, the user experience is great and unique.
Increased organic traffic: Google loves static sites as they are fast, light, and easy to scan. This translates into higher positions of these websites in search results.
Fully omnichannel: Next.js websites and web apps work on any device, so they are accessible to everyone.
Support on demand: since Next.js is a React-based framework, it won’t be difficult to find another frontend developer without a need to build everything from scratch once again.
Increased conversion rate: fast loading speed, better user experience and high accessibility convert into a higher conversion. If the users are happy with the customer experience they got, they are more likely to buy and come back later for more.
Community support: as Next.js is becoming a number one framework for many big brands, it’s becoming more famous, and naturally, so the number of its contributors. That means, even if you face any issue, there will be probably a solution for that already.
The universal compatibility of Next.js ensures web solutions function flawlessly across all devices, broadening customer reach and accessibility.
We’ve integrated Next.js on our own website and we’ve seen a direct impact on our conversion rates, with improved site performance and user satisfaction.
Next.js drives our business growth and our commitment to delivering cutting-edge web solutions.
Jakub Dakowicz, CTO at Pagepro
Pros of Next.js for developers
Regardless of whether you are looking for benefits from a business perspective or a technical one, you will find some reasons to seriously consider choosing Next.js.
If you want to build a complex and demanding application, React development nature of Next.js allows for saving a lot of time. Developers especially favour features like:
Zero Config – Next js framework allows you to focus on the business logic of your application instead of the application logic. And to help you, it provides automatic compilation and bundling. In other words, Next framework is optimized for production right from the start.
Incremental Static Regeneration – it allows you to update the pages by re-rendering them in the background as traffic comes in. So in other words, static content can become dynamic.
A hybrid of server-side rendering SSR and static site generation SSG – prerender pages at build time or request time in a single project.
TypeScript support – automatic TypeScript configuration and compilation.
Fast Refresh – fast, live-editing experience – edits made on React components are live within seconds. It works analogically to Hot Module Replacement (HMR).
CSS parsers – the possibility to import CSS files from a JavaScript file. New parses improved the handling of CSS.
Built-in Image Component and Automatic Image Optimization – this feature automatically optimizes images
Automatic code splitting – automatically reduces the size of the page by splitting the code and serving components only when needed. Modules can be automatically imported too, thanks to the dynamic import option.
Data fetching – this option allows rendering the content in different ways, accordingly to the app’s use case. It can be done by pre-rendering with server-side rendering SSR or static site generation and by updating or creating content with ISR.
Cons of using Next.js
The number of Next benefits is huge and clearly outweighs its cons. However, let’s write them down to be as objective as it’s possible.
Development and management – the flexibility, given by Next, has its cost – continuous management. To make all desired changes properly, you will need a dedicated person with proper knowledge. The good news is that this person doesn’t have to be a developer.
Ongoing cost – since Next.js does not provide many built-in front pages, you have to create your own front-end, which will require changes from time to time. It means that you will have to pay a frontend developer to get the job done.
Lack of built-in state manager – so if you need a state manager in your app, you have to add Redux, MobX or something else.
Low on plug-ins – you cannot use much of easy-to-adapt plugins.
It doesn’t matter if you are planning to build a huge and demanding app to serve millions of users, nor if you are a growing web shop on Shopify. In both cases, you can use the advantages of modern web technology to make your business more efficient online.
Uplift your page speed, SEO, and UX, and remember that technologies such as Next.js are making the web a better, cleaner, and more user-centric place. And that will always be favourable, not only to Google but, most importantly, to users.
Not sure if Next.js is the right fit for your project?
Learn more about our Next.js development services and see how we can help your online business thrive.
The increase in popularity of Next.js for building web platforms and apps is probably so visible because of its adoption among the major companies and the wide support it receives from the developer community (including contributors from Google!). For example, Google helped to reduce unused JavaScribt by over 100kb in one area and halved the TBT (total blocking time – time, when a user can’t interact with the page) from 800ms to 400ms.
Additionally, all of its main features like SSR, ISR, SEO & Typescript support and API Routes make it an ideal choice for various projects – from marketing websites to advanced e-learning or insurance platforms.
Can I use Next.js without React?
No, for a simple reason – Next.js is built on top of React, and relies on React to function. Next’s core features are designed to extend React’s capabilities, like file-based routing, automatic code splitting or optimized prefetching.
Is Next Better than React?
We shouldn’t really compare Next.js and React.js directly, because they serve different purposes, even though they are so closely related. React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces, particularly single-page applications. On the other hand, Next.js is a React framework that provides a structure and set of patterns for building React applications more efficiently, with a focus on performance and ease of development for server-side rendering (SSR), or static site generation (SSG).
Here are some considerations to understand their relationship and differences:
Use Cases
React is used for building interactive user interfaces. It’s flexible and can be used in various contexts, from simple widgets to large-scale single-page applications (SPAs).
Next.js is specifically designed for applications where server-side rendering or static site generation is beneficial. It’s ideal for SEO-friendly web applications, e-commerce sites, and landing pages where fast load times and initial rendering performance are crucial.
Features
React provides the foundational building blocks for creating UI components.
Next.js offers additional features on top of React, such as file-based routing, automatic code splitting, optimized image handling, and server-side rendering capabilities. They aim to influence the performance and dev’s experience.
Developer Experience
React requires more configuration and setup, especially for complex applications that require routing, state management, and server-side rendering.
Next.js simplifies the development process by providing a standard structure and built-in solutions for common web development challenges, allowing developers to focus more on writing their application’s functionality rather than boilerplate code.
In summary, it’s not that Next.js is “better” than React, It just provides a more feature-rich and structured environment for building React applications. The choice between using React alone or with Next.js depends on the project’s requirements, the need for SSR or SSG, and preferences for development workflow and application architecture. Of course, within one project part of the app can be built with plain React and the other, i.e. marketing website that requires high SEO results with Next.js.
Further readings
Still not sure if Next.js is the javascript framework you are looking for?
Hopefully, some of these articles will help you decide:
