Next.js vs React

Overview

React

Stacks182.6K

Followers147.0K

Votes4.1K

GitHub Stars240.3K

Forks49.7K

Next.js

Stacks8.0K

Followers5.1K

Votes330

GitHub Stars135.4K

Forks29.7K

Next.js vs React: What are the differences?

<Next.js and React are both popular JavaScript libraries that are used for building web applications. Next.js is a framework built on top of React, providing additional features and functionality to enhance the development process. On the other hand, React is a JavaScript library that focuses on building user interfaces. In this Markdown code, we will explore the key differences between Next.js and React in the context of web development.>

Server-Side Rendering vs. Client-Side Rendering: Next.js provides server-side rendering (SSR) out of the box, meaning that pages are rendered on the server before being sent to the client. This can improve performance and SEO as search engines can easily crawl the content. React, by default, performs client-side rendering, where the content is generated on the client's browser.
File-Based Routing: Next.js offers file-based routing, where each page is represented by a separate file in the project structure. This simplifies the navigation and organization of the application. React, on the other hand, requires manual routing setup using libraries like React Router.
Built-in API Routes: Next.js comes with built-in API routes that allow developers to create backend APIs without setting up a separate server. This simplifies the development process by handling both front-end and back-end needs within the same framework. In contrast, React does not have built-in API routes and requires additional setup for server-side functionalities.
Static Site Generation: Next.js supports static site generation, where HTML files are generated at build time and served to the client. This can improve performance and reduce the need for server resources. React, by default, does not offer static site generation but can be integrated with tools like Gatsby to achieve similar results.

In Summary, Next.js distinguishes itself from React by offering server-side rendering, file-based routing, built-in API routes, and static site generation capabilities, providing a more comprehensive solution for web development projects.

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Advice on React, Next.js

Cyrus

Aug 15, 2019

Needs adviceon

Vue.js

React

I find using Vue.js to be easier (more concise / less boilerplate) and more intuitive than writing React. However, there are a lot more readily available React components that I can just plug into my projects. I'm debating whether to use Vue.js or React for an upcoming project that I'm going to use to help teach a friend how to build an interactive frontend. Which would you recommend I use?

884k views884k

Comments

Cyrus

Aug 15, 2019

Needs advice

Simple datepickers are cumbersome. For such a simple data input, I feel like it takes far too much effort. Ideally, the native input[type="date"] would just work like it does on FF and Chrome, but Safari and Edge don't handle it properly. So I'm left either having a diverging experience based on the browser or I need to choose a library to implement a datepicker since users aren't good at inputing formatted strings.

For React alone there are tons of examples to use https://reactjsexample.com/tag/date/. And then of course there's the bootstrap datepicker (https://bootstrap-datepicker.readthedocs.io/en/latest/), jQueryUI calendar picker, https://github.com/flatpickr/flatpickr, and many more.

How do you recommend going about handling date and time inputs? And then there's always moment.js, but I've observed some users getting stuck when presented with a blank text field. I'm curious to hear what's worked well for people...

401k views401k

Comments

Malek

Web developer at Quicktext

Mar 28, 2020

Decided

The project is a web gadget previously made using vanilla script and JQuery, It is a part of the "Quicktext" platform and offers an in-app live & customizable messaging widget. We made that remake with React eco-system and Typescript and we're so far happy with results. We gained tons of TS features, React scaling & re-usabilities capabilities and much more!

What do you think?

244k views244k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

React	Next.js
Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.	Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.
Declarative; Component-based; Learn once, write anywhere	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
Statistics
GitHub Stars 240.3K	GitHub Stars 135.4K
GitHub Forks 49.7K	GitHub Forks 29.7K
Stacks 182.6K	Stacks 8.0K
Followers 147.0K	Followers 5.1K
Votes 4.1K	Votes 330
Pros & Cons
Pros 837 Components 674 Virtual dom 579 Performance 509 Simplicity 442 Composable Cons 41 Requires discipline to keep architecture organized 30 No predefined way to structure your app 29 Need to be familiar with lots of third party packages 13 JSX 10 Not enterprise friendly	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+)

What are some alternatives to React, Next.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.

jQuery

jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.

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.

AngularJS

AngularJS lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It lets you use good old HTML (or HAML, Jade and friends!) as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly. It automatically synchronizes data from your UI (view) with your JavaScript objects (model) through 2-way data binding.

Django

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

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 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

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.

Vue.js

It is a library for building interactive web interfaces. It provides data-reactive components with a simple and flexible API.

Symfony

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

Related Comparisons

Next.js vs React: What are the differences?

Server-Side Rendering vs. Client-Side Rendering: Next.js provides server-side rendering (SSR) out of the box, meaning that pages are rendered on the server before being sent to the client. This can improve performance and SEO as search engines can easily crawl the content. React, by default, performs client-side rendering, where the content is generated on the client's browser.
File-Based Routing: Next.js offers file-based routing, where each page is represented by a separate file in the project structure. This simplifies the navigation and organization of the application. React, on the other hand, requires manual routing setup using libraries like React Router.
Built-in API Routes: Next.js comes with built-in API routes that allow developers to create backend APIs without setting up a separate server. This simplifies the development process by handling both front-end and back-end needs within the same framework. In contrast, React does not have built-in API routes and requires additional setup for server-side functionalities.
Static Site Generation: Next.js supports static site generation, where HTML files are generated at build time and served to the client. This can improve performance and reduce the need for server resources. React, by default, does not offer static site generation but can be integrated with tools like Gatsby to achieve similar results.

Next.js vs React

Overview