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  1. Stackups
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  4. Frameworks
  5. NestJS vs Next.js

NestJS vs Next.js

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Next.js
Next.js
Stacks8.0K
Followers5.1K
Votes330
GitHub Stars135.4K
Forks29.7K
NestJS
NestJS
Stacks2.7K
Followers3.0K
Votes326
GitHub Stars73.3K
Forks8.1K

NestJS vs Next.js: What are the differences?

NestJS and Next.js are two popular frameworks used for web development. Despite some similarities, there are key differences between the two that set them apart.

  1. Architecture: NestJS is a back-end framework that follows a modular architecture, allowing developers to build scalable and maintainable applications. On the other hand, Next.js is a front-end framework that focuses on server-side rendering, providing a smooth user experience with fast page loading times.

  2. Language: NestJS is built on TypeScript, a strongly-typed superset of JavaScript, which enables developers to write more structured and error-free code. In contrast, Next.js uses JavaScript as its primary language, offering more flexibility but potentially sacrificing some type safety.

  3. Server-side vs Client-side: NestJS primarily operates on the server-side, handling tasks such as routing, authentication, and data processing. Next.js, on the other hand, is capable of both server-side and client-side rendering, allowing for dynamic and interactive web pages.

  4. Scalability: NestJS is designed to handle large-scale applications with ease, providing features like dependency injection and module-based organization. Next.js, while suitable for smaller projects, may face challenges when scaling to handle high traffic or complex functionality.

  5. Ecosystem: NestJS has a strong and growing community, with a wide range of libraries and plugins available for various purposes. Next.js, being more focused on front-end development, also has a thriving community with numerous UI libraries and tools specifically tailored for building interactive user interfaces.

  6. Deployment: NestJS applications are typically deployed as traditional server applications, requiring a server environment and configuration. In contrast, Next.js applications can be easily deployed to hosting platforms that support serverless deployments, allowing for improved scalability and cost-effectiveness.

In summary, NestJS and Next.js have distinct focuses, with NestJS emphasizing back-end development and Next.js focusing on front-end and user interface development. The choice between the two depends on the specific requirements of the project and the preferred programming language.

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Advice on Next.js, NestJS

Yucen
Yucen

Feb 23, 2021

Decided

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.

312k views312k
Comments
Taylor
Taylor

May 5, 2020

Review

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!

758k views758k
Comments
Fronted
Fronted

Nov 23, 2020

Decided

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.

720k views720k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Next.js
Next.js
NestJS
NestJS

Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.

Nest is a framework for building efficient, scalable Node.js server-side applications. It uses progressive JavaScript, is built with TypeScript (preserves compatibility with pure JavaScript) and combines elements of OOP (Object Oriented Programming), FP (Functional Programming), and FRP (Functional Reactive Programming). Under the hood, Nest makes use of Express, but also, provides compatibility with a wide range of other libraries, like e.g. Fastify, allowing for easy use of the myriad third-party plugins which are available.

Zero setup. Use the filesystem as an API; Only JavaScript. Everything is a function; Automatic server rendering and code splitting; Data fetching is up to the developer; Anticipation is the key to performance; Simple deployment
Extensible - Gives you true flexibility by allowing use of any other libraries thanks to modular architecture.; Versatile - An adaptable ecosystem that is a fully-fledged backbone for all kinds of server-side applications.; Progressive - Takes advantage of latest JavaScript features, bringing design patterns and mature solutions to node.js world.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
135.4K
GitHub Stars
73.3K
GitHub Forks
29.7K
GitHub Forks
8.1K
Stacks
8.0K
Stacks
2.7K
Followers
5.1K
Followers
3.0K
Votes
330
Votes
326
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 51
    Automatic server rendering and code splitting
  • 44
    Built with React
  • 34
    Easy setup
  • 26
    TypeScript
  • 24
    Universal JavaScript
Cons
  • 9
    Structure is weak compared to Angular(2+)
Pros
  • 54
    Powerful but super friendly to work with
  • 42
    Fast development
  • 40
    Easy to understand documentation
  • 36
    Angular style syntax for the backend
  • 32
    NodeJS ecosystem
Cons
  • 10
    Difficult to debug
  • 10
    User base is small. Less help on Stackoverflow
  • 5
    Angular-like architecture
  • 3
    Javascript
  • 3
    Updates with breaking changes
Integrations
React
React
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Next.js, NestJS?

Node.js

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Laravel

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

Symfony

Symfony

It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP..

Spring

Spring

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that you can "just run". We take an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.

Android SDK

Android SDK

Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment.

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