NextJS is a framework to build a full-stack application with features such as server-side rendering using React framework.

NextJS is used to build HTTP web applications to run react code, rendering on the server-side. NextJS helps to develop the following different types of applications.

  • Static sites: In this, HTML files are created at build time and copied this HTML files to CDN or Web server and accessible as static HTML files. - These techniques are used for blogging websites and content-related sites where content changes are not frequent

  • incremental static regeneration (ISR) In this, All the static HTML pages are generated at build time, any new page that is created or updated is generated at runtime, not the build time. Incremental means any new pages that were created or updated or deleted. It does not generate all pages at runtime.

    These can be used in eCommerce sites as new products are added or existing products are updated with prices daily.

  • Single Page Applications

The name itself tells that the entire application has a single HTML page that loads on the Client-side

It is a web application that loads the entire page initially, based on client request, It loads and updated the HTML body using javascript.

It is client Side Rendering.

  • Server Side Rendering(SSR) Normally, when a request sends from the client, the Client executes the javascript code and generates HTML, and renders it to the user on the Client Side. In the SSR technique, the Server works as the opposite of Single Page Applications When a request sends from a client to a server, the Server generates HTML and sends HTML code to the client, and displayed it to the user.

Initial load time with this approach is very slow

NextJS advantages

  • Server-side rendering and Single Page Application development
  • Static Site Generator
  • Code splitting
  • SEO
  • Build optimizations
  • Progress app features such as offline, prerender
  • Supports pre-generate HTML in the server as well as in-browser at build/run time
  • It is faster in development and development loading is good
  • Image Optimization
  • Page Routing
  • Better User experience
  • Hot Reloading

NextJS disadvantages

  • It is overkill for simple applications
  • Build time is more
  • Limited plugins
  • State Management is not provided as part of the framework