For a developer, it becomes very important to choose the ideal framework that goes into building the given web app project. When peoplehire ReactJS developers or NextJS developers, the first thing they want to know is whether or not the professionals are experienced with the libraries or frameworks they use.
The developers must go with the framework that provides them with the utmost convenience and ease of use. And that’s how the journey towards building an astounding web app begins! In the cosmos of diverse frameworks, React JS and Next JS are the two most popular choices within the JS environment.
Both of them are built over React but offer different features and are meant for diverse use cases. Therefore, this article is about to educate you on the variations between these two popular frameworks and help you choose the best for developing web apps.
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What Do You Understand by ReactJS?
ReactJS is a Facebook-developed JavaScript library that provides people with an efficient and powerful way of building UIs for diverse web apps. The thing that makes React a popular framework is its component architecture. With this approach, the ReactJS developers will be able to build modular and reusable components by implementing proper code organisation and maintenance.
Beyond that, the ReactJS apps also use virtual DOM for rendering the associated UI elements and updating them, which will result in better UX and performance. Some of the key features related to seeking web app development using ReactJS are:
- Reusability of the components for building complex UIs.
- Use of virtual DOM for efficiently updating the specific UI parts for enhancing performance.
- React comes with a wide variety of tools and libraries to support your quest for development. Alongside that, it also has a big community.
What Do You Understand by NextJS?
If you have studied in-depth about React JS development, then you must have come across NextJS as well because it is built above the React framework. NextJS is designed especially for supporting SSG (static site generation) and SSR (server-side rendering) of React apps. NextJS framework is based upon Babel and NodeJS but integrates with React for developing SPA (Single Page Applications).
With the use of this framework, the developers will be able to create highly responsive and user-friendly static sites or web apps, with React being used at the base. Some of the key features of NextJS includes:
- NextJS allows the React component to render over the server before it can be sent to the client. Thus, the page loading speed increases and that results in better SEO.
- Pre-rendering of the pages is supported at the time they are developed, which enables the creation of static HTML files for better caching and performance.
- NextJS offers file-based routing, which eliminates the necessity of using complex routing mechanisms.
What are the Differences Between ReactJS and NextJS?
Well, now that you know the basic definition of NextJS and ReactJS development, the next important thing is to decide what would work well for the specific projects. Both of them are outstanding tools to implement great experience in the field of web development. But, there are easy learning curves for them to hold onto.
Let’s explore some of the differences between these two frameworks to decide whether one should hire NextJS or ReactJS developers to get started with the web app project:
1. Performance Differences
NextJS apps are known for their extreme speed and responsiveness because of the server-side rendering and static destinations. It enables developers to implement specific enhancement features to the web apps, such as image optimisation or others. So, you can conclude that NextJS for the web app project has the capability of enhancing the overall development performance.
But, when you talk about ReactJS specifically, it supports rendering on the client side. This is not considered enough to support the development of high-performance applications. In terms of performance, NextJS leads the way over ReactJS.
2. Documentation Differences
The documentation part associated with React and Next deserves a lot of attention. It is because good documentation has the capability to help you use the right tools and decide on what libraries you are supposed to count on. Following that, there are a lot of other things that go into project development, which the documentation helps educate the developers with.
You will find it easy to source documentation, tutorials, articles or other such information resources over the internet for both React as well as NextJS. There are walk-through tutorials available as well, which help developers understand the process of component creation, integration and development in NextJS.
But React also offers a similar design with some introductory activities which highlight the fundamentals. So, if you want to create some documentation pages for the NextJS project, you will have to load them in a pages folder. Following that, you must link it to the required header component.
In the case of the ReactJS project, you will have to first make one segment and then integrate it with the router to create specific pages associated with the React project. Thus, the development process becomes quite easier and enables you to write fewer codes.
3. Server-Side Rendering Differences
Server-side rendering is one of the most crucial features, and NextJS supports the same. The purpose of it is to collect the data and render the requests when there is a need for delivering unique views to different users.
React doesn’t allow you with server-side rendering as default, but it can be enabled for sure. It just demands you make an added effort to integrate SSR into the preferred server or setup parameters. Besides, the professionals at any React JS development companymight not be supporting SSR for future versions.
Bottom Line
Choosing the ideal framework between ReactJS and NextJS might seem like a daunting task. But, to ensure the end-users get the best experience out of your developed web apps, it is important you take this effort.
You must emphasise the use cases, benefits, features and other such attributes of either framework to decide what aligns better with the project requirements. So, you must know that people tend to hire ReactJS developers or NextJS developers depending on the professionals’ proficiency in using the respective frameworks.
So, whether you are a developer or a client seeking web app development, understanding these differences between the two popular frameworks is worth the time!