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Meteor vs Next.js: What are the differences?
Introduction
Meteor and Next.js are both popular web development frameworks that allow developers to build robust and efficient web applications. However, there are key differences between the two that distinguish their features and capabilities. In this article, we will discuss six major differences between Meteor and Next.js.
Real-time data synchronization: Meteor offers built-in real-time data synchronization, allowing multiple clients to update and view the same data in real-time. Next.js, on the other hand, does not have built-in support for real-time data synchronization and requires the use of external libraries for implementing this feature.
Build tools and bundling: Meteor provides a built-in build system that automatically bundles all the necessary dependencies and assets, allowing developers to quickly build and deploy their applications. In contrast, Next.js relies on webpack for bundling and requires additional configuration to set up the build process.
Backend rendering: Next.js excels at server-side rendering (SSR) and offers several features to optimize performance by rendering components on the server and sending pre-rendered HTML to the client. Meteor primarily focuses on client-side rendering (CSR) and does not provide built-in support for server-side rendering.
Routing: Next.js includes a routing system that allows developers to define routes and easily navigate between different pages within the application. Meteor, on the other hand, does not have a built-in routing system and requires the use of external libraries or packages for implementing this functionality.
Scalability: Meteor is designed to handle large-scale applications and provides features like distributed data synchronization and reactive data sources. Next.js, on the other hand, is better suited for smaller applications and may require additional configuration and setup for handling high traffic and larger datasets.
Community and ecosystem: Meteor has a large and active community with a wide range of packages and resources available for developers. Next.js, although gaining popularity, has a smaller community and ecosystem compared to Meteor. This might affect the availability of third-party packages and resources for specific use cases.
Summary
In summary, Meteor and Next.js have several key differences in terms of real-time data synchronization, build tools, backend rendering, routing, scalability, and community support. Developers should consider these differences when choosing a framework based on their specific project requirements.
We choose Next.js for our React framework because it's very minimal and has a very organized file structure. Also, it offers key features like zero setups, automatic server rendering and code splitting, typescript support. Our app requires some loading time to process the video, server-side rendering will allow our website to display faster than client-side rending.
We’re a new startup so we need to be able to deliver quick changes as we find our product market fit. We’ve also got to ensure that we’re moving money safely, and keeping perfect records. The technologies we’ve chosen mix mature but well maintained frameworks like Django, with modern web-first and api-first front ends like GraphQL, NextJS, and Chakra. We use a little Golang sparingly in our backend to ensure that when we interact with financial services, we do so with statically compiled, strongly typed, and strictly limited and reviewed code.
You can read all about it in our linked blog post.
Next.js is probably the most enjoyable React framework our team could have picked. The development is an extremely smooth process, the file structure is beautiful and organized, and the speed is no joke. Our work with Next.js comes out much faster than if it was built on pure React or frameworks alike. We were previously developing all of our projects in Meteor before making the switch. We left Meteor due to the slow compiler and website speed. We deploy all of our Next.js projects on Vercel.
Hey guys,
My backend set up is Prisma / GraphQL-Yoga at the moment, and I love it. It's so intuitive to learn and is really neat on the frontend too, however, there were a few gotchas when I was learning! Especially around understanding how it all pieces together (the stack). There isn't a great deal of information out there on exactly how to put into production my set up, which is a backend set up on a Digital Ocean droplet with Prisma/GraphQL Yoga in a Docker Container using Next & Apollo Client on the frontend somewhere else. It's such a niche subject, so I bet only a few hundred people have got a website with this stack in production. Anyway, I wrote a blog post to help those who might need help understanding it. Here it is, hope it helps!
This basically came down to two things: performance on compute-heavy tasks and a need for good tooling. We used to have a Meteor based Node.js application which worked great for RAD and getting a working prototype in a short time, but we felt pains trying to scale it, especially when doing anything involving crunching data, which Node sucks at. We also had bad experience with tooling support for doing large scale refactorings in Javascript compared to the best-in-class tools available for Java (IntelliJ). Given the heavy domain and very involved logic we wanted good tooling support to be able to do great refactorings that are just not possible in Javascript. Java is an old warhorse, but it performs fantastically and we have not regretted going down this route, avoiding "enterprise" smells and going as lightweight as we can, using Jdbi instead of Persistence API, a homegrown Actor Model library for massive concurrency, etc ...
Pros of Meteor
- Real-time252
- Full stack, one language200
- Best app dev platform available today183
- Data synchronization155
- Javascript152
- Focus on your product not the plumbing118
- Hot code pushes107
- Open source106
- Live page updates102
- Latency compensation92
- Ultra-simple development environment39
- Real time awesome29
- Smart Packages29
- Great for beginners23
- Direct Cordova integration22
- Better than Rails16
- Less moving parts15
- It's just amazing13
- Blaze10
- Great community support8
- Plugins for everything8
- One command spits out android and ios ready apps.6
- It just works5
- 0 to Production in no time5
- Coding Speed4
- Easy deployment4
- Is Agile in development hybrid(mobile/web)4
- You can grok it in a day. No ng nonsense4
- Easy yet powerful2
- AngularJS Integration2
- One Code => 3 Platforms: Web, Android and IOS2
- Community2
- Easy Setup1
- Free1
- Nosql1
- Hookie friendly1
- High quality, very few bugs1
- Stack available on Codeanywhere1
- Real time1
- Friendly to use1
Pros of Next.js
- Automatic server rendering and code splitting51
- Built with React44
- Easy setup34
- TypeScript26
- Universal JavaScript24
- Zero setup22
- Static site generator21
- Just JavaScript12
- Simple deployment12
- Incremental static regeneration12
- Filesystem as an API10
- Frictionless development10
- Everything is a function9
- Well Documented9
- Has many examples and integrations8
- Testing8
- Isomorphic React applications7
- File based routing + hooks built in4
- Deployment2
- SEO1
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Cons of Meteor
- Does not scale well5
- Hard to debug issues on the server-side4
- Heavily CPU bound4
Cons of Next.js
- Structure is weak compared to Angular(2+)9