Why We Chose Next.js for Our Client Projects

When we started Pulseon in 2020, we evaluated many frameworks for building web applications. After extensive testing and real-world projects, Next.js emerged as our framework of choice. Here's our journey and why we believe it's the right choice for most projects.

The Search for the Right Tool

Every agency faces this decision: which technology stack gives you the best balance of developer experience, performance, and maintainability? We tried several approaches:

Pure React SPAs worked well but SEO was a constant challenge
Gatsby was great for static sites but felt limiting for dynamic applications
Custom Node.js backends gave us flexibility but increased maintenance burden

Why Next.js Won

1. Flexibility in Rendering

Next.js doesn't force you into one rendering strategy. You can mix and match:

Static Generation for marketing pages and blog posts
Server-Side Rendering for dynamic, personalized content
Client-Side Rendering when you need it

This flexibility means we can optimize each page for its specific use case.

2. Developer Experience

The development experience is exceptional:

Hot reload that actually works
File-based routing that's intuitive
Built-in API routes for simple backends
TypeScript support out of the box

Our developers spend less time fighting the framework and more time building features.

3. Performance by Default

Next.js optimizes many things automatically:

Image optimization with next/image
Automatic code splitting
Prefetching of linked pages
Built-in font optimization

We've seen Core Web Vitals improvements of 40-60% compared to our older React SPAs.

Real Results

For a recent e-commerce client, we migrated from a custom React setup to Next.js:

Time to First Byte improved by 65%
Largest Contentful Paint dropped from 4.2s to 1.8s
Development velocity increased—we shipped features 30% faster

When Next.js Might Not Be Right

We're honest with our clients. Next.js isn't always the answer:

Highly interactive apps like real-time collaboration tools might benefit from a pure SPA
Simple static sites might be over-engineered with Next.js
Legacy integrations sometimes require different approaches

Conclusion

For most web applications—especially those needing good SEO, performance, and a balance of static and dynamic content—Next.js has become our recommendation. It's not about following trends; it's about delivering value to our clients efficiently.

If you're considering a web project and wondering about technology choices, we'd be happy to discuss what might work best for your specific needs.