Overview
Next.js is the modern way to build a production-ready web application.
What is Next.js?
Before we start, let's talk about Vercel, the creator of Next.js. Vercel has a long history of developing high-quality applications. So developers in Vercel decided to take what the React community has done for a long time and bundled it into Next.js, allowing other developers to use it for free. That is how Next.js came to be.
Next.js is a full-stack production-ready React framework that allows you to create not only frontend applications but also API. Next.js provides us with the best developer experience with all the tools we need to go to production. It makes use of React as a view library. Gatsby is another great framework built on top of React. Everything you know about React is pretty much transferrable to Next.js. It's not a brand-new concept! You simply need to learn some new Next.js conventions and viewpoints. It's just a collection of conventions built on top of React.
Features in Next.js
With the beauty of Next.js, it provides essential tools that developers need like:
- Write a development build system ✅
- Write a production build system ✅
- Rendering and Data Fetching ✅
- Built-in file system based routing ✅
- Built-in useful
Link,Image,Headcomponents for optimization ✅ - API routes and Dyanmic Routes ✅
- Render on Edge (Get dynamic content at the speed of static) ✅
When to adopt Next.js?
Here are my recommendations:
Never start a React app from scratch!
Need a single-page application?
Use create-react-app.
Need a static site/blog site? Need a social media site?
Build with Next.js.
Need Server Side Rendering? Improve SEO?
Build with Next.js.
Can I integrate a database to Next.js?
Yes, you can integrate a database into Next.js application.
Can I integrate Content Delivery Network (CDN) to Next.js?
Yes, you can integrate a CDN between server and client!
Recap
Thank you for reading. Next.js is a full-stack production-ready React framework built by Vercel that provides developers extreme flexibility and tons of built-in features without having to install external libraries. Above are also the reasons why so many developers choose Next.js instead of pure React.
I hope you now have a better understanding of what Next.js is and how powerful it is to build on top of it. Drop your opinions about Next.js in the comments section below. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Have a great day!
Sending 💖 to Next.js and Vercel team.