Overview of Next.js for Modern Web Apps: Pros, Cons, and Use Cases

The usage of Next.js in various projects has tripled in 2024, compared to the statistics from 2023. This framework built on React becomes increasingly popular in web software development due to several benefits. In particular, Next.js provides an efficient toolkit enhancing front-end development practices and boosts app performance with features out-of-the-box. 

In this article, we will overview this framework, aiming to identify the reasons behind the growing Next.js popularity.

Next.js is an open-source React framework developed by Vercel. It is designed for building web applications and provides developers with tools for creating fast, optimized, and scalable applications. As an efficient JavaScript framework, Next.js is widely applied to build websites with dynamic content. The framework facilitates efficient page updates by blending the benefits of static and dynamic rendering. When someone visits a website built with Next.js, the framework decides whether to show a pre-rendered page or generate content dynamically on the server. At its core, Next.js uses a server to handle requests, which allows users to get fresh content quickly. This approach is also very efficient in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines can easily index the website.

Alternatively, Next.js can serve pre-rendered HTML files created during the build process with static site generation. This approach is perfect for high-performing websites, and it also works well in terms of SEO.

Next.js boasts long-term support from Vercel, and this provider ensures a stable release cycle. Vercel’s commitment to the framework ensures regular updates, new features, performance improvements, and security patches, providing developers with a future-proof solution. Meanwhile, Next.js is a better fit for smaller projects. There may be a dependency on the ecosystem provided by Vercel, which can create challenges while managing projects at scale.

Deployment with Next.js is versatile and adaptable to various platforms, allowing you to choose the best solution for your needs. While Vercel offers an optimized and seamless deployment experience with features like automatic static optimization, edge caching, and serverless functions, Next.js applications can also be deployed on platforms like Azure, AWS, or Virtual Private Server (VPS). Azure and AWS provide robust infrastructure, enabling you to leverage their global networks, serverless capabilities, and scalability. Alternatively, VPS offers a cost-effective and flexible option, though it requires managing the environment and configuration yourself. These deployment options ensure you can focus on creating great user experiences without being constrained by specific infrastructure requirements.

Now, let’s explore the main reasons to use Next.js for web front-end development. These are the key benefits of Next.js. 

Next.js is built with development efficiency in mind. The framework offers a combination of performance optimization scripts, like automatic code splitting, optimized image handling, strong conventions, and a clear project structure. All these features simplify the developers’ lives by making application scaling and maintenance much easier.

The framework supports various modern development tools for code linting, formatting and testing, that help maintain code quality, consistency, and reliability across your projects. The Next framework also has a growing ecosystem of plugins and extensions that can simplify and enhance your development process and ensure that as your application scales or your requirements evolve, you can easily find tools that integrate smoothly with Next.js.

Next.js benefits from a strong and active community that continually contributes to its growth and improvement. The community’s engagement is evident through numerous open-source projects, tutorials, and third-party libraries that extend the core functionality of the Next.js framework. This collaborative environment makes it easier for developers of all levels to find solutions to common problems, share knowledge, and stay up-to-date with the latest best practices.

Next.js is designed to be flexible and modular, allowing seamless integration with a wide range of other JavaScript libraries and tools. Whether you need state management, form handling, or UI components, Next.js plays well with these libraries. It also offers a fantastic developer experience with features like fast refresh, helpful error messages, and robust TypeScript support. These features can speed up your development process, letting you concentrate on building features rather than configuring your setup.

Next.js offers several features enhanced app efficiency and performance. For example, the platform provides an ”Image”  component that replaces the standard HTML <img> tag. This component has several benefits:

• Automatic optimization: Images are automatically optimized and served in the most appropriate format (e.g., WebP) based on the user’s browser.
• Responsive images: The ”Image”  component generates different image sizes and serves the most appropriate size based on the device’s screen size and resolution.
• Lazy Loading: Images are lazy-loaded by default, meaning they are only loaded as they come into the viewport, reducing the initial page load time.

Next.js improves your application’s performance and reduces software development costs by caching rendering work and data requests. There are various caching mechanisms, each serving distinct purposes:

1. Request Memorization returns values of functions and is used on the server to re-use data in a React Component tree, lasting for the duration of a request.
2. Data Cache stores data on the server, allowing it to persist across user requests and deployments, and is revalidated periodically.
3. Full Route Cache handles HTML and RSC payloads on the server to reduce rendering costs and improve performance, with a persistent nature that can be revalidated.
4. Router Cache is used on the client for RSC payloads to reduce server requests during navigation, and its validity can be based on user session or time.

What is Next.js used for in most cases? The framework fits many scenarios, but the most popular use cases for Next.js are:

E-commerce sites.  Next.js’s server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG) are perfect for e-commerce sites where performance and SEO are crucial. Fast loading times can significantly improve user experience and conversion rates.

Content-heavy websites. For blogs, news sites, and other content-heavy websites, Next.js’s SSG can pre-render pages at build time, making them incredibly fast to load.

SEO-sensitive applications. Any application that needs to be indexed by search engines will benefit from Next.js’s SSR capabilities. This makes it a great choice for marketing websites, landing pages, and online portfolios.

Complex web applications with highly-dynamic content. If you’re building a complex web application with lots of dynamic content, Next.js’s features like dynamic routes, imports, cashing, and performance optimizations can be the best choice.

Static sites with dynamic features. The Next.js framework allows you to build static sites with dynamic features through its hybrid approach. You can use SSG for most pages and SSR or client-side rendering for dynamic parts.

Dashboards and admin panels. The framework’s routing benefits, data fetching methods, and excellent integration with various UI libraries and tools make it suitable for building dashboards and admin panels where fast data updates are important.

Also, If your project heavily relies on React and its ecosystem, Next.js is a natural choice as it seamlessly integrates with React. It has a large and active community, extensive documentation, and plenty of resources, plugins, and support. If your team is already familiar with Next.js and React, there’s a lot of value in sticking with what you know. This can lead to faster development and fewer mistakes. Keeping the same stack across projects can help maintain consistency in your codebase, making it easier to manage and scale.

Now, let’s explore the most distinctive benefits of Next.js, along with the framework’s drawbacks. Mind that each drawback can be mitigated with the right approach. However, they still count as cons and are outlined in the table comparing advantages and disadvantages of the framework. 

Why Next.js is so growing in popularity? These are some of the framework’s essential features standing behind its excellent productivity and performance. 

Many tools and features enhancing the performance

The Next.js framework offers several features that enhance website and web app performance dramatically. In particular, static site generation (SSG) allows you to generate HTML and build time for static sites, ensuring ultra-fast page loads and efficient content delivery. With its server-side rendering (SSR), web pages are pre-rendered on the server and sent to the client. This results in faster load times and better SEO, as search engines can easily index the content. Besides, Next.js automatically splits your code, ensuring that each page only loads what’s necessary. This reduces the initial load time and improves the overall performance of your application. Finally, the Next.js framework provides features like automatic status optimization, automatic image optimization with lazy loading and responsive image support to ensure that the app runs smoothly and efficiently. 

Focus on simplified and flexible development

An important Next.js feature is incremental static generation (ISR). It allows you to update static content after you’ve built your application. The team can use it to create or update static pages without needing to rebuild the entire site. Also, Next.js supports the file-system-based routing mechanism making the creation of routes intuitive. But in version 13 it introduced a new APP Router, built on React Server Components, which supports shared layouts, nested routing, loading states and error handling.

Versatility fitting a hybrid approach

Whether you’re building a simple static site, a complex web app, or even a hybrid site with both SSR and SSG, Next.js can handle it, allows you to combine SSR, SSG, and client-side rendering within the same application, giving you the flexibility to choose the best rendering method for each page.

Efficient integration with other important technologies

Next.js also seamlessly works with other technologies relevant to web development. In particular, it has built-in CSS support. You can import CSS files directly into your JavaScript files, simplifying the styling process. One of the critical benefits of Next.js is its support for TypeScript. As a result, the framework is very efficient when it comes to building type-safe applications. This ensures better code quality and reduces the likelihood of runtime errors.

Help from the community and rich ecosystem

Whether you need analytics, authentication, or state management, you’ll find a wide range of solutions readily available. Seamless integration with Vercel, providing easy deployment and hosting options.The Next.js framework also has a large and active community providing a variety of plugins, libraries, and resources available. Continuously evolving with updates and improvements driven by community feedback.

Apart from advantages, Next.js also has several drawbacks. All of them can be mitigated with the right approach. Here is an overview of the main issues pertaining to Next.js software development, as well as solutions to them.

Complexity state management

While Next.js handles state management effectively, managing a large and complex system(for example for a CRM app) can sometimes be challenging.

Solution: Use Redux Toolkit or Zustand to manage complex states across components with predictable, global state containers. However, you may need to manage the SSR state manually or use wrappers like “next-redux-wrapper” to simplify SSR integration.

Performance bottlenecks are still possible

While Next.js optimizes performance and image loading, performance bottlenecks can still occur with large data sets or heavy computations.

Solution: Implement caching mechanisms to reduce server load and improve performance by caching static assets and frequently accessed data with tools like Redis. Using more powerful servers to support optimisation and maintain good performance also can be helpful.

Limited flexibility in back-end integration

While Next.js allows server-side logic, it can be restrictive compared to a full-fledged backend framework.

Solution: Consider using a separate framework for building the backend (Nest.js, Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET Core) and then use Next.js solely for the front end.

The table below provides an overview of critical Next.js features and aspects, along with their benefits and disadvantages.

Next.js is quite versatile and can be combined with various frameworks, libraries, and programming languages to build powerful applications. Here are some common combinations:

Next.js can seamlessly integrate with various backend frameworks, enhancing its versatility across different tech stacks. For instance, using JS as the main language for the app, Nest.js offers a structured backend architecture with TypeScript, complementing Next.js’s frontend capabilities. Alternatively, you can use backend frameworks on other languages: Ruby on Rails, and ASP.NET Core can be employed for backend services, while Next.js takes care of frontend views. Using Next.js with Ruby on Rails leverages Rails’ powerful backend capabilities, though it necessitates managing two separate projects and can complicate integration due to different languages. Integrating Next.js with ASP.NET Core provides seamless integration with the .NET ecosystem and high performance for enterprise applications, but requires familiarity with C# and a learning curve for JavaScript developers.

For a diverse range of database needs, you can choose from several options depending on your requirements: MongoDB for NoSQL database, PostgreSQL, and MySQL for structured data storage, also SQLite can be employed for lightweight, file-based storage needs, often suited for smaller projects or testing environments.

In a Next.js application, you can integrate several authentication solutions to handle user authentication seamlessly. Auth0 provides a robust and scalable authentication platform with a range of features for secure access. Clerk offers an easy-to-use identity management solution with built-in UI components for user authentication.NextAuth.js is a popular open-source library specifically designed for Next.js, offering flexible and customizable authentication options that support multiple providers and strategies.

For real-time features in a Next.js application, you can use Socket.io to enable bidirectional communication between the frontend and backend, allowing for instant updates and interactions. Alternatively, Pusher can be employed to handle real-time notifications and events, integrating seamlessly with both Next.js and backend services to provide timely updates and interactive experiences.

Deploying Next.js applications across major cloud platforms offers flexibility and integration with various services: On AWS, you can use EC2 for server hosting, S3 for static file storage, or Lambda for serverless functions, leveraging AWS SDK for backend services. Azure supports deployment via Azure App Service, and you can integrate with Azure Functions or SQL Database for backend functionalities. On the Google Cloud Platform, Next.js apps can be hosted on Compute Engine, with Cloud Storage for static files and integration with Firestore or other GCP services for backend needs.

There are a lot of other libraries and tools that you can combine with Next.js. You can query your database with Prisma ORM in Next.js API routes for full rendering flexibility and top performance. For UI design, opt for Tailwind CSS which works seamlessly with Next.js styles and components to create responsive designs.

Next.js excels in delivering fast-loading, SEO-friendly web applications with a great developer experience by handling data fetching at the server level. What does Next.js do? It offers an approach that reduces the need for additional client-side requests and ensures pages are rendered with all necessary data. It simplifies server-side rendering, static site generation, and client-side rendering, although it may have a learning curve and could be complex for smaller projects. Understanding these pros and cons will help you decide whether Next.js is the right fit for your specific project requirements and team expertise.

From our experience, Next.js is a very promising React-based framework that perfectly fits e-commerce websites, content-heavy web platforms, SEO-sensitive apps, complex web platforms with highly-dynamic content, static sites with dynamic features, dashboards and admin panels. Our skilled front-end development specialists are ready to help you leverage this technology. Contact us and let’s see how we can help you leverage Next.js and the many promises that this increasingly popular framework can bring to your business.