Next.js is Vercel's open-source React framework, now on version 15. It extends React with server-side rendering, static generation, the App Router with React Server Components, built-in image/font optimisation and a full-stack deployment model. It's the standard choice for SEO-critical web applications, headless commerce storefronts and content-heavy platforms.
What Next.js adds on top of React for real-world web applications.
Next.js 13+ introduced the App Router — a file-system routing convention based on React Server Components. Server Components render on the server, reducing client JavaScript and enabling direct data access without useEffect waterfalls. Client Components handle interactivity. The result: faster pages with less JavaScript shipped to the browser.
Server-Side Rendering (SSR) for real-time dynamic pages, Static Site Generation (SSG) for pre-built pages, Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) to rebuild individual pages in the background, and Client-Side Rendering for SPA behaviour — all available per route, in the same application.
Introduced in Next.js 14, Server Actions let you call server-side code directly from a React component without writing an API endpoint. Form submissions, database mutations and server-side logic can be co-located with the component that triggers them.
next/image for automatic WebP conversion, responsive sizing and lazy loading. next/font for zero-layout-shift font loading. Automatic code splitting, module chunking and Partial Prerendering (experimental in 15) for instant-loading shells with streamed dynamic content.
Next.js 15 ships with Turbopack as the default development bundler. It's written in Rust and delivers up to 10× faster local dev server startup and Hot Module Replacement than webpack, making large application development dramatically more productive.
First-class deployment on Vercel (edge functions, ISR, Analytics). Equally deployable as a Node.js server on AWS, Hetzner or any VPS via next start or Docker. Self-hosting gives full control over infrastructure and cost.
Next.js + Sylius/Shopware API is our primary headless commerce stack. SSR ensures product pages are immediately crawlable; React components handle the interactive cart and checkout experience.
Marketing sites, product catalogues, news platforms and any application where search engine indexing and Core Web Vitals matter. Server rendering and next/image give a measurable SEO and performance edge over pure SPA solutions.
Teams that want to handle both the React frontend and backend API logic in a single codebase and deployment, avoiding the operational overhead of a separate API server for straightforward use cases.
We build Next.js frontends for headless commerce platforms, SEO-critical sites and full-stack React applications.
Next.js application development — from architecture and component design to deployment, caching strategy and ongoing performance monitoring.
Headless storefronts consuming Sylius, Shopware or custom commerce APIs. We build the full stack — product pages, cart, checkout and account flows in Next.js.
FAQ
The Pages Router (pre-Next.js 13) uses a pages/ directory where each file maps to a route and data fetching happens via getServerSideProps or getStaticProps. The App Router (Next.js 13+) uses an app/ directory with React Server Components, layouts, nested routing and Server Actions. The App Router is the current direction for Next.js; new projects should use it. Existing Pages Router apps can migrate incrementally.
Yes — and this is a common setup. Sylius exposes REST and GraphQL APIs. A Next.js app fetches products, categories and cart data server-side (for SEO) and client-side (for dynamic cart updates). The result is a fast, fully indexed storefront backed by Sylius's commerce engine — with complete freedom over design and UX.
Both are full-stack React frameworks. Next.js has a larger ecosystem, stronger Vercel tooling and broader adoption. Remix has an elegant data loading model based on web platform primitives (fetch, Forms, Response) that can be cleaner for form-heavy applications. We default to Next.js and can advise on Remix if your use case fits it better.
We deploy to Vercel for its tight Next.js integration and edge network, or to self-hosted Node.js environments on AWS or Hetzner via Docker for cost-sensitive projects. For ISR and edge functions without Vercel lock-in, we also use Cloudflare Workers. The right choice depends on your traffic, budget and team preferences.
Next.js has first-class TypeScript support — the framework ships its own types, and the CLI scaffolds TypeScript configuration automatically. All of our Next.js projects are TypeScript-only. Type-safe data fetching with server actions and type inference from route parameters are among the practical benefits of using TypeScript with the App Router.
Get in touch and we'll outline how Next.js fits into your stack.
