As a React Dev, I tried my hands on NextJS and never turned back. What drew me to the platform is the server rendering and easier routing. The two frameworks go toe-to-toe, with NextJS being an advanced version of React. The debate between Next.js vs React has been around for a while.

Comparing Next.js vs React, Next.js is a React framework, on the other hand, React is just a JavaScript library. This blog helps settle the debate by comparing the two frameworks from toe to toe.

⚛React

React is one of the most well-known javascript libraries for building frontend applications. Founded by Facebook in May 2013, the library offers various useful tools to enclose routing and state management patterns alongside Redux and other libraries.

The library allows users to build user interfaces or reusable  components. Due to its big community, React also includes other UI libraries that streamline the developer experience by allowing individuals to download ready-to-use components. React also includes hooks, APIs and server APIs.

What is React Used For?

• Social Media Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter)
• Economy platforms (Airbnb, Lyft, Uber)
• Media Platform (Yahoo!)
• Online Video Streaming Platforms (Netflix)
• SaaS Tools (SendGrid, Asana, InVisionApp, Zapier)

Getting Started with React

React npm package can be installed directly via the command terminal using npx. However, react create-app is outdated as other builders such as Vite provide a faster build time.

npx create-react-app my-react-app
cd my-react-app
//start the server 
npm start

Here is a sample react code:

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
function Hello(props) {
  return <h1>Hello World!</h1>;
}
const container = document.getElementById("root");
const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(container);
root.render(<Hello />)

Key Features of React

• JSX(JavaScript Syntax Extension) or XML 
• Virtual DOM 
• One-way data binding 
• Component-Based Architecture
• Hooks

Advantages of React

✅Ease of Development: JavaScript familiarity allows for creating dynamic apps with less code.

✅Vast Developer Community: React has a huge developers community. Hence, they provide support and resources for learning in a quick time.

✅Reusable Components: React components are reusable. These allow you to load many pages recurringly while keeping their characteristics. The changes will be seen across all pages after modifying the component code.. Users can also download npm packages for existing components.

✅Customization: Extensible with tools like Redux for state management.

Disadvantages of React

❌Starting Point: React is just a UI library, so it requires additional tools and setup to unlock its full potential.

❌Outdated Documentation: React’s rapid evolution means that its documentation can quickly become outdated, requiring developers to frequently relearn aspects of the library.

NextJS

NextJS is a popular React framework developed and maintained by Vercel. It’s developed on Node.js and Babel. Apart from that, Next.js provides static export and pre-rendering, as well as a variety of other useful features such as automatic building size optimization, faster developer compilation, and a preview mode.

What is NextJS Used For?

• ECommerce Websites (Nike, Stripe, Under Armor, LG, Target)
• Marketing and News Websites (Washington Post, Realtor, AT&T, Tencent News)
• Streaming Websites (Spotify, Netflix, Sonos, Hulu, Tiktok, HBO Max)
• AI Chatbots (OpenAI ChatGPT, Vercel, Runway, Perplexity)

Getting Started with NextJS

NextJS is part of react and thus using the framework requires also using react and react-dom. Other features such as typescript and tailwind css are also added into the framework, although users can opt-out.

//automatic installation
npm create-next-app@latest
//manual installation
npm install next@latest react@latest react-dom@latest
//start the server
npm run dev

In NextJS 13, the App is rendered in an app folder inside a root layout, which controls all the pages.

export default function RootLayout({
  children,
}: {
  children: React.ReactNode
}) {
  return (
    <html lang="en">
      <body>{children}</body>
    </html>
  )
}

Key Features of NextJS

Here are the features you can leverage to create ready-to-go applications by using Next.js:

• Server-side Rendering (SSR)
• Static Export (SSG)
• Pre-rendering
• Automatic Build Size Optimization
• Enhanced Development Compilation

Advantages of NextJS

✅Faster Development: Next.js offers many built-in components, libraries, and compatibility, allowing for quick MVP development, and enabling faster user feedback and iteration.

✅Enhanced User Experience: Next.js allows for highly customizable front-end development that aligns with business goals, providing a unique user experience.

✅SEO-friendly: The ability to develop faster and lighter static websites makes Next.js SEO-friendly, increasing the chances of ranking higher on search engines.

✅Super Fast Rendering: Changes can be seen in real-time as the website reloads, making it easy to track updates.

✅Built-in CSS: You can import CSS styles directly from a JavaScript file, which accelerates rendering.

✅Image Optimization: Images are automatically scaled and provided in the WebP format, optimizing them for different viewports.

✅ESLint Support: Developers can easily integrate ESLint using Next.js with a simple configuration with “scripts”: { “lint”: “next lint”}.

Disadvantages of NextJS

❌Routing Limitations: Next.js’s file-based routing system may not be sufficient for complex projects, requiring developers to use Node.js tools for creating dynamic routes.

❌Limited Community Support: The Next.js developer community is smaller compared to React, making it harder to find experienced developers and resources, though it is growing.

Comparison Between the React and NextJs

1. Development Speed ⏩

Next.js offers out-of-the-box features, including its compiler introduced in version 12, which accelerates development by minimizing build times. This reduces the time engineers spend waiting for code refreshes, compared to vanilla React, making the development process smoother and more efficient.

2. Data Fetching and Load Times ⏱

Next.js improves data fetching by preloading page data through server-side traversal of the React tree. This results in faster load times compared to React, which relies solely on client-side rendering. NextJS also automatically caches queries, making it easier to fetch data through the native fetch API.

3. Rendering and SEO📱

Next.js supports pre-rendering, which enhances SEO performance by serving pre-built pages, while React depends on client-side rendering, making it less efficient for SEO-focused applications.

4. Routing 👈👉

Next.js provides a structured, file-based routing system that simplifies setup but offers less flexibility than React, which allows for custom routing setups using libraries like React Router.

5. Performance ⏩

Next.js applications benefit from features like server-side rendering (SSR) and image optimization, resulting in faster performance compared to React's client-side rendering, which is less suited for high-performance apps.

6. Documentation📜

Both Next.js and React offer extensive documentation and learning resources. However, Next.js emphasizes "learn-by-doing" tutorials, while React offers more foundational tutorials. Create React App (CRA) simplifies setup for single-page applications (SPAs) in React.

7. Server-side Rendering💻

Next.js supports server-side rendering (SSR) out of the box, enabling dynamic data fetching and rendering per request. React requires additional configuration to enable SSR, making it less straightforward.

8. Developer Community👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

React has a larger and more active developer community, providing extensive resources and support. Next.js has a smaller but growing community, with discussions often centered around GitHub.

9. Configuration🔧

React's configuration is limited, especially when using Create React App, which restricts setup changes. In contrast, Next.js offers extensive configuration options, allowing more control over project settings.

10. Maintenance 🧰

Both Next.js and React are well-maintained with regular updates, ensuring stability and ongoing improvements.

11. TypeScript Support🔢

Both Next.js and React support TypeScript, but Next.js provides more built-in support for TypeScript configurations. NextJS automatically comes with Typescript, and configuration through touch tsconfig.json. In React, you can add Typescript by installing it as follows:

npm install @types/react @types/react-dom

12. Development Cost💰

Both Next.js and React are open-source and free to use, making them cost-effective options for building applications. However, there are concerns about the ability to host Next.js outside Vercel and Vercel is also expensive.

13. Experienced Developers👩‍💻

React is more popular, making it easier to find experienced developers. Next.js developers typically have a background in React, as the framework is built on top of React.

Comparison between NextJS and React

Which is the Best Next JS or React JS?🧠

There is no simple answer to this as it all depends on your use case. In most cases, I have found React to even perform better than nextjs. Therefore, selecting a framework or library completely depends on your project needs. React and Next.js are emerging and beneficial tools for your project, but only for performing certain tasks.

When you go with Next.js, offers the best server-side rendering and static website development solutions. Also, it lets you manage projects easily with various tools and features.

On the other hand, React is the best choice to develop user interfaces for single-page applications. Since it works with the layer of mobile and web apps, it allows you to create more appealing and intuitive applications.

Next JS is a framework that holds React on its base, while React JS is an open-source JavaScript library, developed and maintained by Facebook. Next JS is used to create web applications and performs server-side rendering, whereas React JS focuses on rendering towards the DOM.

Next.js supports Server-Side Rendering (SSR), whereas React.js supports client-side rendering, which improves the application performance.

Next.js is a framework, used to build UI and pages for the web app with React library, while React.js as a library is a part of a framework, the UI components part.

Next JS is easy to learn if you have a basic knowledge of React, whereas React JS is easy to learn and use if you have an understanding of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

In a nutshell, Next.js offers various tools and features to minimize the development process, whereas, React.js has better resources for the front-end development of your mobile and web application.

Conclusion

In their ways, both React and Next.js provide significant potential for developers. React allows you to design things any way you want and is supported by a large community. Next.js makes your life easier by providing a variety of tools and conventions right out of the box, and it’s backed up by a vibrant open-source community.

To summarise, Next.js provides more capabilities and tools for working behind the scenes, but React.js has more resources for working on the front end of your web or mobile application.

Any project would benefit greatly from the use of React. What’s more, if, given the chance, it can scale up as well. React offers more flexibility than Next. Because it is a library, JavaScript is used. It is up to the engineer to decide whether or not to use it.

I hope this article on Next.js vs React has given you the knowledge and some insights on how and why these technologies are used by many organizations. Best of luck with your upcoming project!