Next.js vs. React: The difference and which framework to choose

The JavaScript ecosystem is as dynamic as the language itself, with new frameworks, tools, and solutions frequently emerging to address challenges and improve the developer experience.

React has gained ground as the most used library or framework among developers, which makes it the go-to framework for new developers in the JavaScript ecosystem. However, Next.js is built on top of the React library. So, how do React.js and Next.js differ, and why does it matter?

In this article, we will be talking about two of the most used JavaScript frameworks, React and Next.js, as well as seeing what advantages and disadvantages one has over the other.

What is React?

React is a UI library created to build declarative, component-based apps and simplify DOM updates. Traditionally, a web page reloads when data needs to be changed, which means when something is clicked, the whole page reloads to show another state which, in most cases, can be slow and inefficient.

The power of React comes from its introduction of the virtual DOM, which helps improve the performance of updates to the DOM for a particular page. React components can either be stateless, re-rendering when any props change; or stateful, only re-rendering within the scope of the applied state.

State is a value that persists over the lifetime of your component and allows it to behave according to user input and received data. State management is made easier in React with the use of Hooks, helping to simplify function calls with reusable logic and avoid boilerplate code.

React provides the flexibility for your app’s organization, structure, and what libraries you use. React also provides patterns and best practices with its component-based architecture.

Features of React

JSX

JSX (JavaScript Syntax Extension) is a combination of JavaScript and HTML. This syntax extension is basically used to create React elements.

const myjsxelement = <h1>I LOVE Contenful!</h1>;

With JSX, all you need to do is write the HTML you are most familiar with while Babel transpiles the code to JavaScript during the build process.

Component-based architecture

Multiple components can be composed together to create scalable, modular UIs, whether simple or complex in nature. Each of these components can have their own logic and behavior. Components are reusable on any part of the page by just calling it.

Virtual DOM

The virtual DOM is an instance of the original, or actual, DOM. Updates to the actual DOM are slow because they require re-rendering everything to show a small state change, but the React team came up with the concept of creating a virtual DOM with JavaScript which, when a state change occurs, makes a comparison between the updated virtual DOM and the previous version of it and applies only the necessary updates to the actual DOM, improving performance.

One-way data binding

Component code provides the logic for displaying data to the user. The flow of data from the component to the React UI is called data binding. One-way data binding means data flows from the parent components to the child components only. This is simpler than two-way data binding, a method used by other frameworks, which can become quite complex.

In one-way data binding, data is passed down to a child component using an immutable (read-only) property (or “prop”). Child components can communicate state changes back to the parent via function callbacks passed in these props.

Advantages of React.js

Easy to learn

Currently, the educational state of React.js is good because, over the years, React has grown with its community, and the community has made thousands of materials available for reference. This supply of documentation and tutorial videos makes React.js an engaging learning experience.

JavaScript syntax extension

JSX is a JavaScript syntax extension that makes writing dynamic web apps in React.js easier. JSX code is compiled to JavaScript, and the Babel compiler can help optimize your code for performance.

Through the use of TypeScript, JSX is type-safe and helps catch errors in your code. Though optional, JSX is an important part of React.js, and it is recommended that you use JSX when developing React.js applications.

Reusable components

React is a powerful JavaScript library that enables you to create reusable components. A key feature of React is the ability to create components, which are self-contained units of code that can be reused throughout your app. This means that you can build your UI from small, reusable pieces, making your code more readable and maintainable.

Performance enhancement

One of the reasons for React’s success is its performance. Because of its virtual DOM, when a user interacts with a React app, only the relevant parts of the DOM are updated. This means that there is no need to redraw the entire page. This makes React apps much faster than traditional JavaScript frameworks.

React’s Hooks are also tailored to optimize performance for things like function calls, preventing re-rendering and lazy loading.

In addition, React can be used with other libraries and frameworks to create even more powerful applications, such as state management with React Redux and advanced routing with React Router. For these reasons, React is an excellent choice for building high-performance user interfaces.

Easily write unit tests

React.js is also popular because it is easy to test. There are many libraries available that make it easy to set up unit tests, and there are also options for end-to-end testing. The well-known starter tool Vite pairs well with Vitest, or you can use the React Testing Library as a lightweight testing framework, among others.

In addition, React's component-based architecture makes it easy to isolate individual parts of the application for testing.

Potential drawbacks to React

Difficult to keep up with frequent updates to the ecosystem

React.js has gained a lot of popularity in recent years due to its high pace of development. However, this has also led to some disadvantages for developers who find it difficult to keep up with the latest improvements. This means that you may need to invest a lot of time in keeping up with the React ecosystem, which can be a deterrent for some people.

Additionally, although the core API is known to be very stable, the high pace of development can lead to some bugs and instability in React applications.

Unnecessary re-rendering

The React component life cycle relies on an internal process to handle props, state, and equality checks. If components are not optimized, React may cause unnecessary re-renders. It is up to you to ensure components handle props and state correctly to ensure an efficient render life cycle.

What is Next.js?

Next.js is a light framework built on top of Node.js and React that makes it easy to create fast, server-side rendered (SSR) websites. It was created by the team at Vercel and has been open source from the beginning.

Next.js is used by some of the biggest names in the tech industry, including OpenAI, Spotify, and TikTok. One of Next.js's key features is its ability to automatically code-split your application, meaning that each page only loads the necessary JavaScript for that page view. This results in faster page loads and an improved user experience.

Another key feature is its seamless integration with React Hooks, which allows you to use stateful components without extra configuration in the client-side logic (this not applicable to server-rendered content.)

Features of Next.js

File system routing

Next.js makes creating routes for your web app easy. There is no need to manually define your routes, because whether you use the pages directory (Pages Router) or the app directory (App Router, available in Next.js version 13+), your folder structure directly controls the URL structure of your app.

Server-side rendering

Next.js supports the rendering of pages on the server side by generating HTML, after which React uses JSON data and JavaScript to make the page interactive on the client side — a process called hydration.

Static site generation

Next.js supports statically generated web pages, which are SEO optimized because of their speed, which can help rank that page higher.

Image optimization

The HTML <img> tag has been enhanced by the Next.js team with built-in performance to help with image optimization. To use this feature, the next/image component is imported. With this feature, images automatically resize to the screen size seamlessly, including those loaded from a remote location. This new feature provides you with an easy way to optimize images for performance without having to manually resize or compress them.

Automatic code splitting

As your Next.js applications grow bigger, the use of third-party libraries, CSS, and JavaScript files increases your bundle size. Instead of downloading a large file on page load, these code scripts can be split into smaller units, and for every feature required, these scripts are downloaded as needed, thereby increasing performance. With React.js you need to do this manually, but Next.js does it automatically.

TypeScript support

TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that adds type checking and other features that can help improve the quality of code. While TypeScript is not required for Next.js, it can be a valuable tool if you are looking to improve the quality of your code.

API Routes

Next.js provides a built-in way to create your own APIs called API Routes. With API Routes, you can create your own endpoints and handle incoming requests however you want. You can use API Routes to create a custom back end for your Next.js application or to expose data from your database to the front end. Either way, API routes give you a lot of flexibility in how you build your Next.js application.

Advantages of Next.js

What reasons are there to use Next.js for your next project or to consider learning it?

Speed

Next.js supports server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG).

Server-side rendering is fast because the pages are built on the server rather than being built dynamically by JavaScript on the client. Static generation is fast because all web application pages have been pre-rendered, cached, and served over a CDN.

Both SSR and SSG support code splitting, which bundles your library files into smaller chunks that load faster and can be further optimized with lazy loading (to only load when necessary).

Less setup

In Next.js, most features come with zero configuration, as they are built in to enhance the experience. For example, routing to pages is based on where the pages are in the file system, meaning you do not need to write routing code.

Easily create your own back end

Easily create your custom backend functionalities with API Routes to power your own front end. This does not affect the size bundle of your client-side application.

Built-in CSS support

One of the key features of Next.js is its built-in CSS support. Where React requires support from libraries to implement SASS, Next.js provides this out of the box and supports locally scoped styles by default. 

In addition, the built-in CSS support means that you can take advantage of features such as server-side rendering and code splitting without having to worry about whether their CSS will be properly processed.

Potential drawbacks to Next.js

Development and maintenance

Just like React.js, Next.js is a straightforward learning experience that can enhance your development solution. It is worth knowing that, along with the significant advantages, it is another library to take on and maintain properly, adding more effort and complexity. You need to consider the benefit of this when starting out.

Routing system

Next.js's routing system is helpful, but it can come at a cost. By tightly coupling your routing logic to your pages, you risk making your pages heavier and more difficult to maintain. Libraries like Link are available to decouple the routing logic. This does introduce more maintenance to manage, though it’s not inherently heavier.

Static site generation build times

While static site generation is a powerful tool (especially to aid SEO), as your site grows, so too can the build time. Adding more routes, including translation options, can significantly increase the build output, which can take time to produce and replicate across a CDN.

Next.js vs. React comparison

The learning curve

If you're already familiar with React, you'll find Next.js easy to learn. That's because Next.js is built on top of React, so it inherited all the benefits of React (such as being component-based and declarative) while also adding its own features and functionality.

React has a shallower learning curve than Next.js, and substantial supporting resources have been added to it. While the core of React is easy to grasp, mastering the additional ecosystem can present a challenge.

Next.js introduces concepts and features that seasoned React developers may want, including abstracting away things such as code splitting and routing. This offers a natural learning path from React’s basic and customizable functionality to Next.js’s advanced and configurable feature set.

Performance

Do you want the benefit of loading time performance without the configuration overhead provided by Next.js? Or are you willing to lose some of the performance benefits that Next.js offers in exchange for more custom control of your rendering (perhaps client side)?

Documentation

The learn-by-doing documentation on the Next.js website is a great resource. The documentation provides concise, step-by-step instructions that will help you get up and running in no time.

If you like immersing yourself in the hands-on, “get-building” approach, then the Next.js docs might be more your thing. If reference guides and a vibrant community are your style, you may prefer React’s walkthrough tutorials. 

Configuration

React is unopinionated about how code should be organized, which makes it easy to work with other libraries with different conventions.

The minimalist built-in features and modularity of React means it offers less preconfigured functionality. This leaves you to build your app with your chosen libraries. This gives you the freedom to tailor your application exactly to your needs, with the adaptability and customization of a hand-crafted solution.

One of the benefits of using Next.js is that almost everything is configurable out of the box. For example, you can create babelrc, jest.config, and eslintrc files to customize the build process and linting rules for your project. This flexibility makes Next.js an attractive option if you want complete control over your project's configuration.

There are also a number of UI libraries available for both React and Next.js like ReactUI and NextUI.

Server-side rendering

Next.js supports SSR; you don’t need any configuration to make this happen. React doesn't support server-side rendering by default but this can be configured with some extra effort.

Overview of Next.js vs. React

When to use React instead of React + Next.js

The main reason to use React is it has an easier learning curve. If you don't need the extra benefits that Next.js offers or don't want to use its defaults, then React should be your go-to choice.

Below are some use cases where React might be better than Next.js:

• Single-page applications. For simple sites like these, you don't need Next.js features like server-side rendering or static site generation.

• When SEO isn't a priority. For example, internal SaaS applications.

• When you need control over routing. Next.js forces a filesystem-based structure for routing, which may not be right for you.

• You're already using a backend framework. If you're using a backend framework like Express already, then the benefits of using Next.js might not be so useful.

Some use cases for React:

• Online streaming platforms

• Social media platforms

• Delivery platforms

• SaaS tools

• News sites

When to use Next.js over only client-side React

Next.js is a great choice if you are building a static site or a larger application that may also require routing for APIs, as it automates many of the build processes and offers built-in support for server-side rendering.

Ultimately, it depends on the specific needs of your project. Use Next.js if any of the following are important to you:

• High performance. Pages load faster with Next.js, as they have been pre-built and loaded as HTML. On top of this, images are optimized and JavaScript code is loaded only as needed due to automatic code splitting.

• SEO. Your content can be pre-rendered and indexed by search engines much faster, because of SSG and SSR in Next.js. This improves your SEO rankings.

• JAMstack. If you are looking to build a JAMstack application, Next.js is the best match. JAMstack applications pre-render pages, which requires a static site generator, and they rely on using APIs for the back end, so API routing will be needed. All this is built into Next.js.

• Single stack. Next.js allows you to create your own back end and front end with one stack.

• SSR. Next.js provides SSR right out of the box.

• Hybrid sites. If you need some pages of your application to be static and others dynamic, you should use Next.js. It lets you choose between different rendering methods for each page, whereas React only allows one method — client-side rendering — which isn't as good for performance or SEO. 

Some use cases for Next.js:

• Ecommerce stores

• Blogs

• Marketing websites

• Landing pages

The bottom line: Will Next.js replace React?

There are many modern web development architectures which use JavaScript, APIs, and pre-rendered Markup. Next.js is a great tool for this because it uses server-side rendering to automatically generate HTML pages from your React components.

On the other hand, React is a frontend JavaScript library that helps you create user interfaces and reusable UI components. When used in combination with other technologies such as Redux, React Router, and Turbopack, React can be used to build large-scale web applications. One of the benefits of using React is that it makes code maintenance easy by allowing you to create isolated components that can be reused throughout the application.

Furthermore, choosing what tool you need depends on the problem you want to solve and the situation. Next.js is intended to build on top of React, complimenting it with extended functionality and server-side capabilities.

We hope these comparisons help you choose what tool you need for your next project or help you take the right action in your coding journey as a new developer.

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