Next.js is an open-source web development React-based framework created by Vercel, which is famous for its unique features such as Server-side rendering and enhanced SEO. It has some additional features such as data fetching utilities, dynamic API routes, optimized builds, etc. It is a framework built upon React, Webpack, and Babel.
A traditional react application is rendered client-side whereas a Next.js application is used to create production-ready web applications. Learning Next.js requires knowledge of basic React and Web Development. The most popular use of Next.js is in making Landing pages and marketing websites. Also if we want our webpage to rank better on searches the inbuilt features of Next.js provide support for that functions.
Why Next.js:
You would be wondering if Next.js require some basic knowledge of React and React is a popular front-end JavaScript library then why do we have to learn this not to go only with React.js? The main reason is that Next.js has big advantages over React.js, it fixes some common problems that arise in React development. React does not have built-in routing capabilities which means we have to depend on third-party libraries or build our own routing solution and Next.js solved our problem of routing.
One of the biggest problems with React is that it’s a client-side library, which means it renders the UI on the client browser and this may lead to slow rendering and results in slower page loading time, which is not good for SEO and Next.js solves this problem by providing server-side rendering out of the box and many more problems solutions it problems. These are the main reasons to choose Next.js.
Features of Next.js:
- Hot Code Reloading: It automatically reloads the application when changes in the code get saved it is also known as fast refresh.
- Automatic Code Splitting: With this feature, every import in the code gets bundled and served with each page. It means that unnecessary code never gets loaded on the page. If there is an import in a specific page then other pages do not include that library this makes our application lightweight.
- Ecosystem Compatibility: Compatible with JavaScript, Node, and React. This makes it the first choice of many developers.
- Server Rendering: Easily render React component on the server before sending HTML to the client. This feature helps in improving SEO as load speed is a crucial factor when pages ranking is decided
- Styled-JSX: Styled-JSX allows you to write CSS directly inside JavaScript code. This solves confusion caused by maintaining multiple stylesheets
- Automatic Routing: The files inside the pages directory are automatically mapped and does not require additional coding
Prerequisites:
Before start learning Next.js you should have basic knowledge of how we shifted from JavaScript to React, after that, you can shift from React to Next.js. So you will need basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, JS, and React.
Learn more about Next.js:
Disadvantages of Next.js:
Even though there are many advantages of Next.js but it has some drawbacks which we have discussed below.
- It is very less flexible and almost everything has to be coded from scratch.
- It also has lesser plugins as compared to its alternatives.
- It lacks an inbuilt state manager so we have to use external state managers like Redux.
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