What is Next.JS?

Next.JS is a JavaScript framework that enables you to build superfast and extremely user-friendly static websites, as well as web applications using React, thanks to automatic static optimisation, where “static” and “dynamic”, have become one now. This feature allows Next.js to build hybrid applications that contain both server-rendered and statically generated pages.

In other words,

Statically generated pages are still reactive: Next.js will hydrate your application client-side to give it full interactivity.

This opens many advantages like:

Rich User Experience (easier and faster) Great Performance (also easier and faster) Rapid Feature Development Next.js is widely used by the biggest and most popular companies all over the world like Netflix, Uber, Starbucks, or Twitch. It’s also considered as one of the fastest-growing React frameworks, perfect to work with static sites — which is the hottest topic in the web development world currently.

What can You build with Next.JS?

With Next.js you can build a number of digital products and interfaces such as:

MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Web Portals Single web pages Static websites SaaS products eCommerce and retail websites Dashboards Complex and demanding web applications Interactive user interfaces.

Next.JS and User Experience

User experience plays a key role in the success (or failure) of digital products/businesses. If you have an online product or a business and don’t have a good UX, it will result in abandoned carts, high bounce rates, and much more.

The design is also important — if you are using themes or templates, the chances that someone out there is having a similar-looking layout is high. It also means that you can’t build unique customer experience and improve it over time. Even if this means changing one simple thing like adding a button to the product page or deleting one.

Luckily, thanks to Next.js, you can build a fully-customized user experience. This allows you to have:

User experience freedom - You don’t have to limit yourself to any plugins, templates, nor any other restrictions dictated by eCommerce or CMS platforms. It gives you total freedom to customise the Frontend exactly how you want it. It also allows you to make creative changes without any limitations. Adaptability and responsiveness - Websites and web apps created with Next.js work on any device and adapt to any screen size or resolution. Therefore, users can access your website or web app with their favourite device; be it a phone, desktop or a tablet without any flaws based on screen size. Short page loading times - Next.js websites are super-fast because they are static so visitors will be granted with faster load times which will lead to lower bounce rates. Data security - In case of static websites there is no direct connection to the database, dependancies, user data or other sensitive information, which makes them relatively safe. All of these make the user experience as great as it can possibly be but the benefits of using Next.js doesn’t end there!

Next.JS and SEO Another big reason to choose Next.js is its SEO effeciency. It uses Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and, at the same time, can be a great Static Site Generator (SSG).

SEO benefits of using Next.js

In both cases, it will help you a lot with:

Growing organic traffic faster Ranking your high intent keywords higher Outperforming competitors More visibility to potential customers. Next.js websites are super-fast, easy to scan and provide a great user experience and that’s why Google will favor them above others and rank them higher, giving it a high SEO score.

Pros and Cons of Next.JS

As any other framework, some great opinions come with the price. Let’s have a look at the most popular pros and cons of using Next.js.

Regardless of whether you are looking for benefits from a business perspective or a technical one, there are some pros that will make you chose Next.js.

If you want to build a complex and demanding application, React development nature of Next.js allows for saving a lot of time. Developers especially favor features like:

Zero Config - Next.js allows you to focus on the business logic of your application instead of the application logic. And to help you, it provides automatic compilation and bundling making Next.js optimised for production right from start. Incremental Static Generation - It allows you to update existing pages by re-rendering them in the background as traffic comes in. This makes static content dynamic! Hybridisation of SSR and SSG - Pre-render pages at build time or request time in a single project. TypeScript support - Automatic TypeScript configuration and compilation. Fast Refresh - Fast, live-editing experience. Built-in CSS support - Possibility to import CSS files from a JavaScript file. The number of Next.js benefits is huge and clearly outweighs its cons. However, let’s write them down to be as objective as possible.

Development and Management - The flexibility, given by Next.js, has its cost, continuous management. To make all desired changes properly, you’ll need a dedicated person with proper knowledge. Ongoing cost - Since Next.j does not provide many built-in front pages, you have to create your own Frontend, which will require changes from time to time which means you will be paying a Frontend developer. Lack of built-in state manager - If you need a state manager in your app, you have to add Redux, MobX or something similar. Plug-ins functionality limited- You cannot use much of easy-to-adapt plugins.

It doesn’t matter if you’re planning to build a huge and demanding app to serve millions of users, nor if you are growing a web-shop on Shopify. In both cases, you can use the advantages of modern web technology to make your business more efficient online.

Uplift your page speed, SEO, and User Experience, and remember that technologies such as Next.JS are making the web a better, cleaner, and more user-centric place. And that will always be favourable, not only by Google but, most importantly, by users.