[sph]

Next.js is not a good general purpose React framework. It is good for static sites with sparse dynamic pages but nothing more complex. And the documentation is still woefully inadequate.

Don't be like me, choosing to build an entire app on Next.js and hating every moment of it after the honeymoon period ended 2 weeks in. Live and learn.

[leerob]

Hey there, I'm on the Next.js team. Sorry about this experience. I would argue Next.js is a general purpose React framework – we enable you to take advantage of all the latest React features. Apologies if there was a gap in the documentation. Could you share more so we can improve? You can also email lee at vercel dot com.

[tr1ll10nb1ll]

You might be much more experienced than me so feel free to discard my suggestions if you objectively know you're right.

However, I would strongly disagree with you on the part about it not being suitable for complex applications.

If you feel that way, you can choose to have a decoupled backend (which is what I do with Django) or go all in with full-stack integrations (tRPC in conjunction with edge functions) on top of Next.js.

I have seen great apps built with both of those ideologies.

[benoits]

What do you recommend instead (or are looking at)?

[sph]

Sorry, I wouldn't know. I got out the frontend world after that experience, and I don't think I've seen any solid answer yet.

[solardev]

Can I ask how long you ended up using Next for? Did you quit frontend dev after 2 weeks, or only after working through the challenges etc.?

My Next honeymoon has been going on for a couple years now, and I think it's an AMAZING developer experience compared to anything I've worked with before (Perl/PHP/Laravel/Symfony/Angular/jQuery/React)... it's the framework that made me choose to specialize in frontend because it was so nice. What didn't work for you?

[sph]

I designed and led that project for 3 years. The technology choice was mine, so it was a learning experience. Frontend was something I did alongside the rest of the stack, but I've seen so many terrible libraries by inexperienced developers come and go post jQuery, I actively avoid frontend-focused roles now.

[solardev]

> I've seen so many terrible libraries by inexperienced developers come and go post jQuery, I actively avoid frontend-focused roles now.

I don't blame you, heh. Every year I feel like the fragmentation is getting worse, not better. It's fun for a while, but makes it really hard to plan for long-term stability and maintainability. It's likely anything I write today will be unusable in 2 years.

[sph]

I am still annoyed I took the time to learn Webpack and its overly complex configuration a few years back, and the world has already forgotten all about it. There definitely is the feeling that learning a new frontend library is a terrible use of your time.