Chukwunonso Joseph Ofodile

Posted on Oct 10

A Beginner’s Guide to Next.js: Why I Switched from React

#nextjs #react #webdev #programming

When I first started learning front-end development, React was my world.
It was fast, powerful, and made building web apps fun. But as I began working on more projects, I started running into a few problems, things like slow SEO performance, complicated routing, and manual setup headaches.

That’s when I discovered Next.js, a framework built on top of React that promised simplicity, speed, and SEO power.
After a few days of experimenting, I realized…

“Wow, this is what I’ve been missing.”

In this post, I’ll share why I switched from React to Next.js and what makes it such a great choice for beginners who want to build modern web applications.

1. React Was Great, But Missing a Few Things

When you build apps with React, you quickly learn that it’s not a complete framework, it’s a library for building user interfaces.

That means you need to set up other tools yourself:

A router for navigation (react-router-dom)
A bundler like Vite or Webpack
A system for managing server-side rendering (if needed)
Handling SEO manually

This wasn’t bad at first, it helped me understand how things work under the hood.
But over time, I realized I was spending too much energy setting up projects instead of building them.

That’s when I started looking for something that could handle all that for me, without losing React’s flexibility.

2. Next.js Simplified My Life

When I first created a project with Next.js using:

npx create-next-app@latest

…I couldn’t believe how smooth the setup was.
No extra router, no manual bundler configuration, no worrying about SEO or routing. Everything just worked.

Here’s what stood out immediately 👇

✅ File-based Routing

Instead of installing react-router-dom and defining routes manually, you simply create files in the pages (or app) directory.

Example:

pages/
 ├── index.js       → Home Page
 ├── about.js       → About Page
 └── contact.js     → Contact Page

You type /about in your browser — and boom, it loads automatically.
That alone made me fall in love with Next.js.

3. SEO Became 10x Easier

One big issue with React apps is SEO.
Since React apps are mostly client-side rendered, search engines sometimes struggle to read your content properly unless you use extra tools for server-side rendering (SSR).

Next.js solves this out of the box.

It renders pages on the server first, sending a fully formed HTML page to the browser which search engines can easily index.
This means better visibility, faster load times, and improved performance on tools like Google Lighthouse.

4. Built-in API Routes

In React, if you wanted a backend, you needed a separate setup (like Express.js).
Next.js, however, includes API routes by default.

That means you can write backend logic right inside your Next.js app in a folder called /api.

Example:

// /pages/api/hello.js
export default function handler(req, res) {
  res.status(200).json({ message: 'Hello from Next.js API!' });
}

Now, your front end and backend live in one place which is perfect for small apps, dashboards, and portfolios.

5. It’s Fast. Really Fast.

Next.js automatically optimizes your app for performance:

It pre-renders pages
It uses automatic code splitting
It optimizes images and fonts

Even without doing much, my Next.js site loaded noticeably faster than my React version.

Performance matters not just for users, but also for SEO rankings.

6. The New App Router (Next.js 13+) Made Things Even Better

With the new App Router, Next.js introduced a more modern way of structuring apps using the /app directory.
It supports:

React Server Components
Streaming
Simplified data fetching

The structure is cleaner and more scalable for real-world apps.

Here’s what a sample structure looks like:

app/
 ├── layout.js
 ├── page.js
 ├── about/
 │   └── page.js
 └── contact/
     └── page.js

If you’re new, start with the App Router it’s the future of Next.js.

7. Deployment Is Effortless

When I was using React, deploying meant figuring out hosting, configuring routes, and dealing with build settings.

With Next.js, deployment on Vercel (the company that built Next.js) is as simple as connecting your GitHub repo and clicking “Deploy.”

It auto-detects everything build settings, environment variables, and routes — and gives you a production-ready URL in seconds.

8. Why I’ll Never Go Back

React taught me the fundamentals of front-end development.
But Next.js made me faster, more productive, and less frustrated.

It feels like React but upgraded with all the tools I wish React had from the beginning.

If you’re a beginner, here’s my honest advice:

Learn React to understand the basics.
Then move to Next.js to build real, scalable apps.

You’ll thank yourself later.

Final Thoughts

Switching to Next.js was one of the best decisions I’ve made as a developer.
It didn’t just make my projects faster, it made me faster.

Do You want to hear another Fantastic decision I took? Joining LearnWithJossy.com Code Academy. They Will teach you everything you need about web development, from HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Reactjs, Nextjd, node and express plus many more. You Can click here to join

If you’re still building your projects in plain React, give Next.js a try.
You’ll see why so many developers (including me) made the switch.