Your Next Framework - Drew Bredvick

As you kick off 2024 planning for The Big Rewrite, choosing your tech stack is one of the first decisions. The back end team has already decided on a language for their microservices. Up next, the front end framework.

You've heard a lot about Next.js, but isn't it getting a bit old now, at least in JavaScript years? That begs the question, 'Is Next.js still a good pick?'

It's a fair question, especially given the sheer number of front end options. I'd bet your thought process looks something like this:

There's React, Vue, Svelte, and Angular. Then there's the meta frameworks like Next.js, Gatsby, SvelteKit, Nuxt, Astro, and more. I think I remember hearing static JAMStack was the way to go? But the SEO team says Server Side Rendering is required. Oh and let's make it serverless. Or maybe we go with Docker, Kubernetes, and lots of Helm charts? This is a lot.

And you're right, it is a lot.

Two and a half years ago, I wrote a guide detailing the technical and business reasons why you should pick Next.js.

So why revisit the topic?

While the article still holds up, there have been plenty of changes to the front end world. At Vercel, my experience assisting numerous companies with framework and platform evaluations has provided fresh insights.

If you're making a framework decision in 2023/24, this series is for you.

What's changed?

You might imagine that it's only been two years, not that much could have changed, right? Well, you'd be wrong. The front end ecosystem is evolving at an insanely fast pace.

Here's a quick timeline briefly covering some big changes since Next.js 10.

Introduction of Next.js 10 with image optimization & internationalized routing
Oct 2020
Major release of Gatsby 4 with DSG and SSR
Oct 2021
Next.js launches version 12 with Rust compiler and Middleware
Oct 2021
Stable launch of React 18 with concurrent features
Mar 2022
Shopify acquires Remix to invest in the web platform
Mar 2022
Astro launches 1.0 Beta Release
April 2022
Release of Next.js 13 with App Router, RSCs, and new data fetching
Oct 2022
Major release of SveleteKit 1.0 with Form Actions and Hooks
Dec 2022
Gatsby Cloud acquired by Netlify
Feb 2023
Release of Next.js 14 with Server Actions (GA) & partial prerendering
Oct 2023

Upcoming posts

That's a lot of change, right? With new information, we've got to re-evaluate our framework decisions.

Is React still dominant?
What makes a good framework?
JAMStack vs the Server
Next.js App Router vs Pages Router
Remix, Gatsby, SvelteKit, Nuxt, Astro, and more
Deploying, Docker, and Kubernetes
and more

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