Next.js vs React: Which is the Best Choice?

Hello everyone! Today, we’re comparing Next.js and React. Modern web developers have no shortage of JavaScript libraries and frameworks to choose from. One of the most ubiquitous libraries is React, created by Facebook, now known as Meta, to help build feature-rich applications. React applications traditionally run in web browsers, but the Next.js framework extends React functionality to the server side via the Node.js runtime environment.

In this article, you will learn:

• Which platform offers better performance and SEO
• Which is easier to use for beginners
• Which platform is more suitable for custom software development

Let’s dive into the details!

Next.js

Introduction and Usage

‍Next.js is an open-source React framework that provides the building blocks to create high-performance web applications. Major companies, including Twitch, TikTok, and Uber, have adopted it. Next.js offers an excellent developer experience for building fast, SEO-friendly applications, saving considerable time on configuration and tooling. For custom software development, Next.js supports various projects such as e-commerce stores, blogs, dashboards, single-page applications, interactive user interfaces, and static websites.

Pros and Cons

‍Next.js comes with built-in tools like routing, code-splitting, pre-rendering, and API support, all pre-configured. This makes Next.js easier to work with daily, enabling you to start coding your application's logic immediately. Next.js pre-rendering solutions, like static site generation (SSG) and server-side rendering (SSR), enhance application performance and user experience.

React

Introduction and Usage

‍React is a JavaScript library used to build dynamic user interfaces. With React Native, you can also build mobile applications. The benefits of using React include improved performance through virtual DOM updates, heavily component-based architecture for reusability, and easy debugging due to unidirectional data flow from parent to child components.

Pros and Cons

React is relatively unstructured, requiring you to install and set up additional libraries and tools like React Router, data fetching, image optimization, and code-splitting. By contrast, Next.js comes with these tools pre-installed and pre-configured, simplifying its usage.

Comparing Next.js and React

For Beginners

‍Both Next.js and React are easy to start with. Each requires running single commands in your terminal using npx, part of npm for Node.js. It’s important to note that Next.js is built on top of React, so you need to understand React before learning Next.js. Fortunately, React boasts a gentle learning curve and is great for beginners.

Performance and SEO

‍Next.js applications perform better than client-side rendered React applications. With pre-rendering (SSG and SSR), Next.js fetches data on the server and sends everything the browser needs, resulting in faster load times. Additionally, Next.js supports client-side routing, so the browser doesn’t have to fetch data from the server each time a user navigates to another route. The Next.js image component enables automatic image optimization, loading images only when they enter the viewport.

Community and Documentation

‍React has a larger community due to its longevity. However, the Next.js community is growing rapidly as many React developers are adopting Next.js. Next.js features excellent documentation with comprehensive examples that are easy to understand. While React’s documentation is popular, it is not as easily navigable.

Application Hosting and Performance

‍Next.js excels in application hosting and performance. With SSR and SSG, Next.js applications outperform client-side rendered React applications. Pre-rendering and dynamic imports contribute to faster page speeds by reducing the amount of code sent to the browser during the initial load.

Conclusion

For custom software development, both tools are excellent choices but for different purposes. Next.js is a better option for those who need greater flexibility and performance, while React is ideal for those seeking a simpler, easy-to-handle tool.