Next.js vs React – What are the Differences?

Next.js, a lightning-fast React framework, has gained immense popularity for its ability to build data-heavy streaming sites like Hulu and Netflix. If you’re familiar with React, exploring Next.js can significantly enhance your web development capabilities.

History of Next.js vs React

One of the most widely used front-end libraries for creating dynamic and quick user interfaces is React, which Facebook created and made available in 2013. It provides a component-based architecture that encourages maintainability and reusability.

Although React’s virtual DOM guarantees effective rendering and updates, developers are still responsible for making choices regarding routing, state management, and other integrations because it is an unbiased framework. Despite this, many developers worldwide choose React because of its ease of use and speed.

On the other hand, Next.js is a robust framework built on top of React created by Vercel and released in 2016. Its integrated features simplify the development process, including file-based routing, Server-Side Rendering (SSR), and Static Site Generation (SSG).

With built-in API routes for full-stack capability, automated code splitting for enhanced performance, and server-side page rendering, Next.js offers superior SEO optimization. It is renowned for having a zero-configuration setup that facilitates scalability and quicker development. Because businesses like Netflix, Twitch, and Uber have adopted Next.js, it has become a popular option for enterprise-level projects.

To gain a better idea of Next.js vs React, let’s look at how these two are different.

While both React and Next.js are powerful tools for crafting user interfaces, they possess distinct characteristics. Next.js is a more feature-rich and opinionated framework, particularly well-suited for websites prioritizing search engine optimization (SEO) or pre-rendering.

Next.js vs React

Here’s a glance at the key differences between Next.js vs React:

Next.js vs React:  Rendering in Next.js

The rendering process involves converting React code into HTML so that the browser can present it as the user interface.

There are three approaches offered by Next.js:

• Client-side rendering (CSR)
• Server-side rendering (SSR)
• Static site generation (SSG)

It also has an extra feature called Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR). ISR combines server-side rendering with a semi-static caching system, providing speeds comparable to a static page while minimizing server load.

Pre-rendering is the process of generating HTML pages before they are sent to the client side. It includes server-side rendering and static site-building. An important benefit is that Next.js provides strong support for pre-rendering React projects.

Client-side Rendering

Vanilla React apps always use client-side rendering. This process creates the HTML for the page on the client side. More specifically, rendering happens in the user’s browser, and HTML is made by JavaScript on the user’s device.

Once the page is fully rendered and ready to be interacted with, the user interface (UI) shows up.

CSR is possible for Next.js components using React useEffect or useSWR.

Server-side Rendering

With SSR, Next.js generates HTML on the server before sending it to the client. This ensures that the user interface is displayed faster, even before JavaScript loads on the client side. A few lines of configuration allow developers to enable SSR on specific pages.

Static Site Generation

Next.js lets you make static sites, where all of the HTML pages are generated from the JavaScript during the build phase. In comparison to a React single-page application, the initial build time required to generate a static site from a React code base is greater.

The benefit here is that static material can be delivered and cached as quickly as the site content permits without requiring the computational overhead of SSR.

The getStaticProps() and getStaticPaths() functions let us do SSG on Next.js pages that we want to make static. The getStaticPaths() function sets the routes for static pages.

Next.js vs React:  Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to SEO, Next.js emerges as the clear winner in Next.js vs React. The speed of Next.js and its ability to pre-render all pages of a website allows search engines to crawl and index the site more quickly and easily, enhancing SEO. This can improve the website’s ranking.

With an average click-through rate of 27.6% for the top result—ten times higher than the 2.4% click-through rate for the tenth result—users are more inclined to click on higher-ranked websites.

SEO can be affected by Google crawling and indexing websites with plenty of content and JavaScript code used to display it.

In addition to improving SEO results, server-side rendering (SSR) in Next.js is simple and it speeds up page load times for a better user experience.

Getting Started With Next.js

Now, we’ll examine the fundamentals of Next.js setup, routing, pages, and navigation so you can take advantage of pre-rendering and SEO. Before beginning our Next.js guide, make sure you have the most recent version of Node.js installed on your computer.

You can verify the Node.js version on your machine with node --version.

There are two ways to set up a Next.js project:

• Automatic setup, with predefined configurations
• Manual setup and configurations

  Here’s how you can set up a Next.js project with TypeScript in a step-by-step pointer format:

  1. Use the create-next-app CLI Tool:
     The create-next-app CLI tool simplifies project setup, allowing you to create applications quickly.
  2. Automatic Setup:
     Opt for the automatic setup to make the process easier and faster.
  3. Run the Command:
     Execute the following command in your terminal to create a Next.js project with TypeScript support:

• Provide a Project Name:
  • You’ll be prompted to enter the name of your application.
  • Ensure the project name:
    • Uses lowercase letters.
    • Replace spaces with hyphens (e.g., my-next-app).
• Begin Development:
  After setup, you’re ready to start building your project using Next.js with TypeScript.

• The website’s pages and styles are organized into their folders.
• APIs are stored in the pages/apis folder.
• Publicly available assets are held in the public folder.

Once the Next.js project is set up, you’ll notice a well-organized folder structure like this.

Next.js Routing and Pages

Next.js uses its file structure inside the pages directory to define the application routes.

We define all routes in the pages folder. The default pages/index.tsx file is the application’s entry point where we define custom fonts, application tracking codes, and other items requiring global access.

There are two methods for adding new routes:

• Add a file ending in .tsx directly in pages.
• Add an index.tsx file under a new subfolder of pages (index Files are automatically routed to the directory root).

Let’s examine a few concrete Next.js routing examples. For our tutorial, we’ll implement a simple page route and then touch on nested and dynamic routing concepts.

Page Routes

We can add a basic page route, such as, with a about-us.tsx file:

pages
├── _app.tsx
├── about-us.tsx
├── API
│ └── index.tsx

Or we can use a index.tsx file under a pages/about-us folder:

pages
├── _app.tsx
├── about-us
│ └── index.tsx
├── API
└── index.tsx

Go ahead and add the about-us.tsx page route to your project.

 import styles from '../styles/Home.module.css';
const AboutUs: NextPage = () => {
return (
<div className={styles.container}>
<main className={styles.main}>
<h1 className={styles.title}>
Welcome to the About Us Page
</h1>
</main>
</div>
);
}; </code></pre>

export default AboutUs;

We’ll see how it works when we combine page routing with Next.js browsing. For now, we’ll return a NextPage blank with a title string so that the navigation works correctly.

Nested Routes

When a user hits on a URL, for example, you might want to change the body content but leave the header and footer layouts untouched. Nested routes let you reuse and selectively update multiple layouts on a page.

pages
├── _app.tsx
├── API
│ └── index.tsx
├── parent
│ ├── index.tsx
│ └── child.tsx

The nested route /parent/child  is set up with a parent  folder and achild folder or file (a file is used in this case).

Dynamic Routes

When fixed paths aren’t enough, dynamic routes let layouts adapt to changes that happen in real-time. Let’s say we want to make a route that goes to/product/[productId] . This route will make the product’s component bigger when it is clicked on.

Suppose the variable productId  is available in our description of the Product In that case, we can easily add a dynamic route by making a product folder and putting our productId page inside brackets:

pages
├── _app.tsx
├── API
│ └── index.tsx
├── [productId]
└── index.tsx

This way, the query fields for a route, such as  product/testId, will be set, soproductId will be set to testId.

The last thing that can be done is to mix routing methods. We could make the nested dynamic route. pages/post/[postId]/[comment].tsx. 

Next.js Navigation

To optimize navigation and data pre-fetching, Next.js employs its unique Link components rather than the HTML  <a>  tag when traveling between client-side pages. Link  uses href as the route to be opened and functions similarly to the tag.

To make  Link  transfer its route value to child components (i.e. when utilizing custom-styled components), you must use the passHref prop.

When a user hovers over or close to a link, data is pre-loaded in the background. This is the main advantage of using Link rather than the  <a>  tag.

This results in better app performance by making the content easier for the client to process. The Next.js element can still be used to link to external pages outside of the application.

To link to our About Us page from the Next.js project blueprint, open the pages/index.tsx main app file. We’ll first import the Link component, and then add a linked paragraph below the <h1> component:

<p className={styles.description}>

Here’s our example <Link href=“/about-us”>About Us</Link> page</p>

Now we can run our app using the npm run dev shell command, visit http://localhost:3000, and see our added text and About Us page working at http://localhost:3000/about-us (the route returned after clicking About Us).

This is an example of the Next.js landing page that appears by default when your application is successfully launched. This verifies that everything is operating as it should.

When you go to the “About Us” route, you should see this output, which means the custom About Us” page was made successfully.

Supercharge Web Apps With Next.js

Selecting the right framework for your website is a critical decision, as it depends on various factors. While Next.js is more structured and less adaptable compared to React, it provides excellent built-in features for projects that prioritize SEO or require pre-rendering.

Incorporating Next.js into your workflow can enhance your website’s performance and gain an advantage over standard React-based applications.

Conclusion

The choice between React vs Next.js depends on the needs of your project. While Next.js expands on React’s capabilities by adding server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), and pre-rendering, React still provides a rich ecosystem and a great deal of flexibility for designing user interfaces.

These features make it easier to build applications that use a lot of data or depend on search engine exposure. They also improve performance and SEO.

If you are already comfortable with React, moving to Next.js will help you design faster, more scalable, and optimized applications for search engines.

Next.js offers an organized method to advance your web development projects, whether you’re creating a streaming service, an e-commerce platform, or a content-heavy website.

To master React and elevate your web development skills, check out Edureka’s React JS Course. This course is designed to give you in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience with React, helping you easily build dynamic, high-performance web applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Next.js better than ReactJS?

As an update to React, Next.js includes server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG), which make the site faster and better for SEO.

It’s possible to make a lot of different kinds of user interfaces with React, but Next.js is a more structured and opinionated framework for making websites. Often, the choice between the two relies on the needs of the project and the preferences of the developer.

2. Can Next.js replace React?

React has not been completely replaced by Next.js, even though it is built on top of it and provides more functionality. React is still a strong toolkit for creating user interfaces, and Next.js is an addon that offers more features and optimizations for particular applications.

3. Is Next.js frontend or backend?

Next.js is a frontend framework based on React that concentrates on the user interface and client-side rendering of web apps. It also has backend-related functionality like server-side rendering and API routes.

4. Is Next.js required for React?

The answer is no, React does not require Next.js. React is a stand-alone library that may be used to create web apps without Next.js. On the other hand, Next.js offers more features and improvements that can improve your experience with React programming.