Next.js vs Node.js

Next.js vs Node.js

What is Next.js?

Next.js is a popular React.js based framework to create static webpages that can be generated on a server, server-side generation of webpages can enhance SEO. It is built on top of node.js and provides an opinionated structure and set of features to simplify the development of React applications.

Features:

• Server-side Rendering (SSR): Next.js allows developers to render React components on the server, providing a fully rendered HTML page to the client.
• Static Site Generation (SSG): Next.js supports pre-rendering of pages at build time, generating static HTML files for each page.
• Automatic Code Splitting: Next.js automatically splits the JavaScript code into smaller chunks based on the page and component boundaries.
• Hot Module Replacement (HMR): Next.js includes HMR, allowing developers to see changes in the code without losing the application state.
• Routing: Next.js has a file-based routing system, where the structure of the page's directory maps to the application’s URL structure.
• Full React Ecosystem: Next.js is fully compatible with the React ecosystem, enabling developers to use popular libraries, tools, and frameworks like Redux, GraphQL, and TypeScript.

Advantages of Next.js:

1. Interactive User Experience: It offers you the freedom to create a user interface according to your business goals and visions.
2. Faster Development: It consists of many ready-to-use components and libraries, which leads to rapid development.
3. SEO Friendly: Next js improves SEO by providing server-side rendering by default. It offers head components that enable the developers to add meta-tags dynamically.
4. Fully Compatible: Next.js websites and web applications are compatible with any device, making them fully accessible to anyone.
5. Community Support: Next.js has gained popularity within a short time, because of its enriched features and functionalities it has large community support. If you face any issues, it is easy to get the solutions quickly.

Disadvantages of Next.js:

1. Complexity: Developers new to server-side Rendering may experience some difficulty in managing data fetching, routing, and other new features.
2. Occurring Cost: Next.js doesn’t have built-in front–end pages, meaning you have to create the entire front end from the ground up. Configuration may take some time.
3. Less Plugins: It offers a limited set of adaptable plug-ins. Hence, finding generators or executors to manage the app might be a bit challenging for you.
4. No Built-in State Manager: You won’t find a built-in state manager in Next.js. For that, you need to integrate state management tools like MobX or Redux.

Node.js overview

Node.js is a runtime environment that enables JavaScript to be executed on the server side. It’s a cross-platform tool that allows JS code to run outside any browser. Node.js has various modules and is predominantly used in web development.

Node.js is used when you’re dealing with I/O bound, data streaming, and real-time applications. Node.js works on a single thread using non-blocking I/O calls. It supports tens of thousands of concurrent connections and optimizes throughput and scalability in applications with many I/O operations. All of this makes Node.js applications very fast and efficient.

When to use Next.js over Node.js?

Next.js and Node.js serve different purposes in web development, so the choice between them depends on your project requirements:

Next.js:

• Choose Next.js when you're building a front-end application with server-rendered React components.
• It's excellent for building server-side rendered (SSR) or static websites with React.
• Provides features like automatic code splitting, routing, and pre-rendering for improved performance and SEO.
• Ideal for building dynamic web applications with a strong focus on the user interface.

In some cases, you may use both Next.js and Node.js in the same project. For instance, you can build a Next.js front end that communicates with a Node.js back end through API endpoints.

Ultimately, your choice depends on the specific requirements of your project and whether you need to focus on front-end development (Next.js) or server-side logic (Node.js).

Compare Next.js vs Node.js for full web development

How to install Next.js?

To install Next.js, you need to have Node.js installed on your system. Here are the steps to install Next.js:

1. Open a terminal or command prompt on your system.

2. Create a new directory for your Next.js project, or navigate to an existing project directory.

3. In the project directory, run the following command:

npx create-next-app@latest nextjs-exmple

This will create a new Next.js project in your project directory.

4. now you have nextjs-exmple folder with the project structure, just enter the folder with cd the command;

cd nextjs-exmple

5. Then, running the following command will start Next.js development server:

npm run dev

This command starts the development server and makes your Next.js application available at http://localhost:3000.

7. Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000 to see your Next.js application running.

Page example

In Next.js, every page you can export as a React Component from the page directory.

here we will see how we can add one simple page to our app:

first, we need to create our route where our page will be visible, in Next.js it is as simple as creating a folder and file.

If we create an index.js file under the page folder, it will be associated with the / route of our application.

In the same way if we want to create route/posts/first-post then we need to create a post folder under pages and then file name first-post.

create a new page:

first, create a new folder name post under the pages folder,

then create a new file called example.js under the posts folder.

export default function Home() {
  return <h1>Hello from theHashCode</h1>;
}

From this File, you can export any React Component and it will be rendered on the page,

Now run your application by npm run dev command, then visit http://localhost:3000/posts/example. You should see the page with the H1 tag from our React component.

Conclusion:

We have gone through a huge list of differences between Next.js and create-react-app. Although Next.js beats create-react-app applications in most cases, create-react-app is the most suitable in cases of CSR Applications. CSR applications might be a necessity when SSR is not an option, for example, when videos are played. Companies like Netflix take advantage of both worlds and design superior systems. We hope you keep in mind the differences and points mentioned above while designing your applications.