Next.js VS Nest.js – Top 5 Differences & What to Use

If you are a coder or are aspiring to become one, it is always crucial to keep up with the upcoming and latest technologies and with a lot of options for website development platforms, it is necessary for developers to be able to differentiate and choose the best platform.

Next.js and Nest.js are two frameworks with similar names but a very different range of functions. In this blog, we are going to explain Next.js vs Nest.js and carefully differentiate between the two.

Differences between Next.js vs Nest.js

Next.js	Nest.js
Next is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.	Nest.js is a framework for building efficient server-side applications.
Next.js has been mentioned in a total of 82 companies and more than 69+ developer stacks.	NestJS is listed in 12 company stacks and 13 developer stacks.
CircleCI, Avocode, and overcome Solutions are some of the popular companies that use Next.js	NestJS is used by Sofit Software, Quero Education, and YABAWT.
Next.js with ~100K+ GitHub stars and 20K+ forks on GitHub appears to be more popular	NestJS with 60K+ GitHub stars and 8K+ GitHub forks.
Key factor-Automatic server rendering and code splitting	Powerful but super friendly to work with

What makes Next.js a renowned platform?

Next.js is an extraordinary framework that utilizes React to build server-side rendered web applications. The majority of developers using Next.js are convinced about its utility and feature range and consider it to be one of the best tools for building websites. This platform has an upper hand when compared with other platforms as Next doesn’t require any web-pack configuration and most developers with considerable experience in the developers’ world already have sound knowledge regarding React platform on which Next.js is built.

Even this blog post and the whole website of codedamn is built using Next.js. You can start learning Next.js for free through Codedamn. This is part of codedamn’s full-stack learning path.

A few reasons to choose Next.js

Next.js has a plethora of features for developers to choose from. Let us guide you through the list of some of the most prominent features of the platform.

1. Website formation is easy

Developing a website can be a complicated process if not clubbed with the right feature range.

Next.js takes care of all levels of developers and has a framework designed to easily generate websites. It provides a hassle-free experience to compile and then export the application on HTML using next export command.

2. Server-side rendering

Everybody wants their designed applications to be optimized for search engines and server-side rendering does that by default. Server-side rendering helps in SEO by allowing developers to add Meta-tags which are a major component of SEO.

Companies get benefits like:

• A static page can be delivered instantly to the client while the regeneration of the page happens in the background (Incremental Static Regeneration)
• Creation of SEO-friendly and high-performant web apps easily.

3. Its own router

Whenever a developer tries to build an application using React, they need to install a specific router called the react-router and configure it themselves whereas when using Next.js, it comes equipped with its own routers and requires no additional configuration.

You just need to create your pages inside the pages folder and Next will take care of the routing mechanism.

What is Nest.js?

Nest.js is yet another flawless framework designed to build dynamic applications that are built on Node.js. It utilizes Express.js and it is built using Typescript. This framework is built on Javascript, preserves compatibility, and combines elements of different programming i.e. Object-oriented programming, functional Reactive Programming, and Functional Programming.

A reasonable knowledge of Javascript is essential for developers willing to design top-notch applications using Nest.js. One might wonder why Nest.js was developed when Node.js was already providing a platform for developers, so this is because Node.js has some architectural problems which Nest solves by providing a structure where people can organize their codes into different modules. Another considerable feature of working on nest.js is that it is completely built with Typescript so which helps enhance the development of the web app by helping in code type checking.

The latest version of Nest.js is version 5 and it is packed with dozens of features, let us list some of the considerable features for you below.

Some reasons to choose Nest.js

1. Open source and well maintained

Open source is becoming a popular way for companies to start their projects now. If you’re a beginner, you might also want to start working in open source. Nest.js is an open-source project (has an MIT license) and is deemed to be extremely easy to use and develop applications on.

This project has well-maintained documentation and provides a user interface that makes the web development process much easier. It is said to be designed for microservices and monoliths and the documentation present on the platform elaborately talks about the microservice type of the Nest.js application as well as its techniques.

2. Supports different modules

Nest.js supports different modules that help in the easy integration of many technologies such as Mongoose, Websockets, Caching, and many more.

3. Design scalable applications

Nest.js has an out-of-the-box application structure for developers using the platform, it helps users create easy to maintain applications. It is a highly compatible platform that allows third-party plugins easily.

Summary

Every developer looking to design top-notch applications has different requirements and Next.js and Nest.js are ideal frameworks for different kinds of developers. Going by the GitHub reviews, Next.js is a preferred choice but nobody can deny that Nest is also much easier to use and understand.