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Why I'm using Next.js

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Re: Why I'm using Next.js

#81
post #68
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t understand this sentiment, it is extremely easy to build and deploy Next.js yourself?? You either: - Build static files and host it like any other framework (e.g. throw it in an S3 bucket)[0] - Or, run a Node.js server Where’s the Vercel exclusive part there? [0] Here’s me doing exactly that, going through the same steps I would for literally any Frontend framework, including the WASM alternative I als…

I helped stand up Notion’s marketing site ( https://notion.so/product ) on NextJS. It’s really annoying / impossible to implement all the fancy caching, incremental revalidation, etc if you need to run more than one instance to serve the load you get. Or you need a horrendously complex AWS buzzword graph that will kinda sorta do the things. We switched from AWS ECS deployment to Vercel after tiring of figuring out ho…

> We switched from AWS ECS deployment to Vercel after tiring of figuring out how to support Next features that require very tight cooperation from CDN/distributed cache magicks.

I guess that's how they get you, by making it onerous to self host and instead offering a clean yet more expensive solution.

Re: Why I'm using Next.js

#84
I'm using Next.js for a few reasons: - SEO was the initial draw. - First time doing real frontend web for prod, wanted to use React + MUI. - Did not want to use Django, Rails, WASM, etc. - I come from backend and devops (less a reason than a general note for context).

Right now, I'm most curious about DIY hosting in EC2 with Go (or Rust) instead of using Vercel.

This might seem old-fashioned in the days of ECS/EKS etc., but I'm really comfortable with EC2 and love the cost-savings and control (I build my own load balancers, NAT instances, reverse-proxies, health-checkers/deployment managers; saves a ton of money).

Re: Why I'm using Next.js

#85
post #3

Pretty sure you use it because vercel likes the frontend engineers who don't know how/or care to deal with the backend.

Yes. Learned this really quickly.

I want to leverage Next.js but not Vercel (if I don't have to). I have experience with backend and devops, so I care about and want to deal with the backend myself (cost-savings, control, decoupling).

The sentiment and complaints seem to sum up to, "if you're using Next.js, you basically [or eventually] have to use Vercel." But I do not want this to be true. That said, I also don't want to sacrifice benefits of Next.js or have to "fix" things constantly or unnecessarily.

Re: Why I'm using Next.js

#86

Next.js is such an odd experience. On the one hand, I've built three apps in Next.js, a business directory on Vercel with a separate (Firebase) DB, a blog (Cloudflare, Next on Pages) which pulls from an API and a little calendar management app (Vercel), which also only pulls from an API. The speed at which I could get something up and running was astounding. Before Vercel I tried Google's Firebase hosting, which was…

> Only a redeploy will get me updated data from the DB. This caching thing, when it wad released, is one of the sneakiest bastards ever. I had to add a random string to a query of each request to avoid caching on the management panel. It happened that because of the cache, one client was able to see the cached data for another client. We have had 4 FE on next and now gradually moving to remix and away from vercel.

+1. I spent hours to understand how the router cache works and turn off cache but failed. It is good in pages folder. But in the app folder I just can not stop the cache.
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