Next.Js Hub

Next.Js is hands down one of the most popular React.Js frameworks today that is used for powering all kinds of websites - small, medium, or big. It's also trendy for building SEO-friendly web apps.

According to its creators:

Next.js is a React framework that gives you building blocks to create web applications. By framework, we mean Next.js handles the tooling and configuration needed for React, and provides additional structure, features, and optimizations for your application.

nextjs.org

One of the reasons all kinds of web developers so love it is that it's based on React.Js - a popular and widespread library for building user interfaces.

But Next.Js quickly becomes the preferred choice for building web apps because of its different building blocks.

Building blocks like:

• Routing - a feature that provides smooth navigation between different parts (or "pages") of your website or application.
• Server-Side Rendering - a feature that generates an HTML document as a response to browsers' requests for a page so that this response is "readable" by search engine bots.
• Data Fetching - several ways of generating the web app's pages so you can choose the one that suits your use case best.
• And many others.

If you want to build an MVP (Proof of concept) really fast and without reinventing the wheel, then you need to use a proven framework that reduces time-to-market.

Next.Js is such a proven framework for building websites and web apps.

Some popular brands like Nike, Hulu, Hashnode, and Netflix use it.

Next.Js is a React.Js framework, and React.js is a JavaScript library. That's why you need to learn the JS syntax first, then some React.Js, and finally, Next.js.

Moreover, if you want to grasp the concepts of Next fully, you need to do some reading on how the Web works - HTTP Requests, Server Responses, HTML, CSS, and other web development topics.

It depends on the use case...

If you want to build an SEO-friendly website and build it fast, then Next.Js will be the right choice for this project because it comes packed with many of the needed "website building blocks" like routing, server-side rendering, image optimization, and more.

On the other hand, if you want to build a Single Page Application and you already have chosen a different programming language for the backend (Python, PHP, Java), then plain React.Js will be the right choice because you don't need many of the ready-to-use building blocks of Next.Js.

But generally, it's easier to use Next.Js because of the packed stuff you get for free.

It's a React.js framework, so it's more inclined to the front-end part of web development. In reality, Next.js blurs the lines between the backend and the front end so it is successfully used as a "full-stack framework."