Next.js
By Vercel
js is a React framework for building production web applications, adding server-side rendering, static site generation, routing, and API endpoints on top of React.
Definition
Next.js is a React framework for building production web applications, adding server-side rendering, static site generation, routing, and API endpoints on top of React.
Overview
Next.js was first released by the company now known as Vercel, originally Zeit, in October 2016, aiming to solve a common pain point with plain React: building a production-ready app required stitching together a router, a build system, and a rendering strategy yourself. Next.js bundled those decisions into a single, opinionated framework. It supports multiple rendering strategies for the same codebase—server-side rendering (SSR) on each request, static site generation (SSG) at build time, and incremental static regeneration (ISR) that refreshes static pages in the background—alongside file-system-based routing and built-in API routes for backend logic. Since version 13, its App Router has layered in React Server Components, letting parts of a page render on the server without shipping their JavaScript to the browser. Because of its close ties to Vercel's hosting platform and its comprehensive feature set, Next.js has become one of the most widely used ways to build React applications in production, commonly compared with alternatives like Nuxt.js in the Vue.js ecosystem, SvelteKit, or Remix.
Key Features
- File-system-based routing derived from the project's folder structure
- Multiple rendering strategies: SSR, static generation, and incremental static regeneration
- React Server Components (App Router) for reduced client-side JavaScript
- Built-in API routes for backend endpoints alongside the frontend
- Automatic code splitting and image/font optimization
- Middleware for request handling at the edge
- Tight integration with Vercel's deployment and edge network
- Strong TypeScript support out of the box
Use Cases
History
Next.js is a React framework for building production web applications, providing server-side rendering, static site generation, file-based routing, API routes, and image optimization out of the box. It was created by Guillermo Rauch and released as open source on October 25, 2016, under his company (then called ZEIT, now Vercel). Next.js addressed the substantial boilerplate developers faced when configuring server-rendered React apps — Webpack, Babel, routing, hydration, and more — by providing sensible defaults. It became the most widely used React framework, powering major sites, and later introduced the App Router and React Server Components as it evolved toward a full-stack framework.
Sources
- Next.js — official website · as of 2026-07-17
- Next.js on GitHub — vercel/next.js · as of 2026-07-17
Frequently Asked Questions
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