[mcintyre1994]

CRA isn’t really an alternative because it doesn’t have a server-side component. It’s also a lot less opinionated around things like routing. I’d say Remix is probably the main competitor to Next, that’s built around React Router and already has support for nested routes/layouts, and has opinionated support for the server-side too.

[amcsi]

I'm implying that if you "don't need Next.js", because it's too heavy-weight (because e.g. you already have a dedicated team working on the back end API using a different language), then too bad: there's no lighter-weight alternative that is viable.

[nsonha]

Nextjs has useful defaults and enough basic elements for front-end.

create-react-app is just a bunch of oppinions on how to config your app that dont really add much productivity if you are already familiar with webpack. Depending on the need I'd either go with react and my webpack config copied from last project or nextjs. Don't see the point of cra