What is Next.js and Why Should You Use it in 2023? Pros And Cons of Next.js

What is Next.js? If you are a react.js developer, you may have come across the term Next.js. But if you haven’t it’s time for you to level up your development skills with Next.js. In this blog, we will see what is Next.js and Why we should you use it in 2023.

But before knowing what exactly Next.js is, let’s first explore why we require it when we already have react.js. So, let’s get started with why Next.js!

Why Next.js?

As React JS has developed and turned out to be a master for developing web applications or websites on the front-ends. But the advantages Next.Js brings with it are something we can’t ignore in terms of web development.

Using react.js to develop modern javascript applications is quite handy and helpful until you encounter some issues with rendering application content on the client side. Next.js solves this issue with something called server rendering, also known as static pre-rendering.

Next.js has a number of reasons to be used but performance and speed are two critical factors for any application, and server rendering help to excel these factors on your app.

Now, you have a brief overview of next.js, let’s understand what exactly it is.

What is Next.js?

According to Nextjs.org “Next.js is a flexible React framework that gives you building blocks to create fast web applications.”

Simply put, it is a React framework that allows users to develop single-page Javascript apps. This framework has numerous benefits for each client as well as the developers. As customers, one can get increasingly indignant as our expectancies are not met with the performance of websites and apps that take longer than milliseconds to load. It is sizeable and a first-class choice for various reasons. But, mostly is speed and overall performance associated.

It mainly focuses on providing high performance with rich user experience and feature development. Next.js accomplish this through its three rendering methods Server Side Rendering (SSR), Pre-rendering, and Deferred Rendering (also known as Incremental Static Rendering (ISR)).

Why Should You Use it?

Next.js comes with lots of amazing features which every developer will like to have in his developer toolkit. Some of these features are:

Bundles and serves each page with each import inside the code.
The ecosystem is compatible with javascript, react, and node.js.
Its server rendering feature makes application performance great.
Programs load automatically when changes are made to code.
You can write CSS directly in the code.
The application can be exported to static HTML and can be run without a Node.js server.
Provides typescript support.

Pros of using Next.js

Some of the primary benefits are:

Improves overall performance
More SEO friendly, increase conversion rate.
Cross-platform
Data security
Lower cost of maintenance
Size responsive applications
Auto image optimization
Fast refresh rate
Great community support

These are just some of the pros, along with an enhanced development process, and a new user experience.

Cons of using Next.js

Although Next.js has lots of features and pros still it is in the evolving phase. So have some cons to be considered as well. Some of them are listed below:

Compare to other similar frameworks like Gatsby.js, it has less number of adaptive plugins.
It does not provide many integrated front pages, so developers have to build an entire front page from scratch.
Dynamic routing is only possible with the Node.js server. As it only supports using file routers.
Because Next.js supports the static building of the whole website, constructing apps with more than one page can take pretty a long time.

What you can build using Next.js

There are numerous applications, I have tried to put some of the major applications that can be built using this framework and seen frequently on the web:

Single page websites
Static websites
E-commerce websites
Progressive web application (software built using standard web technologies like Javascript and HTML)
A blog website
Dashboards

Construct robust, complicated software with the intention to serve hundreds or thousands of humans or an internet store. In both cases, you can use the advantages of this framework to make your business shine more online with SEO and UX customization. This react framework assists you’re making the internet a higher, cleaner, and extra person-centric area to improve your page velocity. Pages generated statically are nevertheless responsive and allow applications to be completely interactive.

Conclusion

In this blog, I have tried to explain what is Next.js, its use case, and Why it should be in your technology stack if you are a developer or a client. Along with that, we have discussed the pros and cons of next.js and where you can use it.

That’s it for today.