Published on

Trying out NextJs - What I Understood

2 min read
Nextjs

I just marathoned through the Next.js 14 Tutorial by Codevolution on Youtube.

(and created my portfolio website)

For someone who has been working with React for more than an year now (refs: 1, 2, 3), and very much used to the free hand React provides, Next.js initially felt super restricting and opinionated, before I fell in love with it.

Had somehow solved/emulated SEO to some extent, in React by putting together different techs(cloud functions for bots by serving them prebaked meta the way i want, helmet for clients to switch meta using js), and here I wrote 3 lines in every file that needs dynamic meta and, voila, it's done.

Learnt Dynamic Metadata, Server Side Rendering, Client and Server components, fetching data without creating another backend.

If you are someone who has been working with React, I recommened you try Next if:

  • you want SEO
  • your project doesn't need too much customization
  • you are comfortable handling Frontend and Backend both (why not do it in a single codebase)
  • you want server side rendering

I will write another post/blog about the way I am emulating SSR for SEO in one of my React-based work projects, if you can't switch to Next.

Anyways, I whipped out my pesonal portfolio website using Next. And yes it is a template. I (will) connect it to MongoDb so I don't have to release updates for every little thing.

You can have a look here: https://harshwadhwa.com