NextJS is one of the most used JavaScript frameworks in the world. Its entire principle is based on enhancing the React library to offer a ready-to-use solution with the possibility of executing requests directly on the server: a true React framework!
The Origins of NextJS
NextJS is a framework developed by Vercel (formerly known as Zeit 😉) and launched in 2016.
Its goal? To make web development with React easier and more optimized.
Some find it so much easier to learn NextJS rather than React that they try to skip learning React altogether and jump straight to NextJS: this is one of the things to definitely avoid when starting with NextJS, because everything is based on React.
A good NextJS developer is first a good React developer.
Originally, React only handled the frontend side: this resulted in it being not at all optimized for natural referencing (SEO).
A solution was needed for developers wanting to enhance the performance and SEO optimization of their websites (which, in turn, increases their chances of ranking well in search engine results!).
This is where NextJS was born: to address this issue.
Thanks to its server-side rendering (SSR - for Server Side Rendering) and its static rendering (SSG - for Static Site Generation), NextJS offers a highly simplified management to improve page loading speed.
Strong Popularity for NextJS in 2025
Statistics in Favor of NextJS
NextJS is experiencing a meteoric rise in the JavaScript ecosystem over the past few years, and it won't stop in 2025!
Indeed, the framework developed by Vercel has become a true standard for many professional projects (Believemy itself uses NextJS! 😬) demanding excellent performance.
At the Level of Google Trends
If we look at Google Trends, NextJS has never been more searched for than it is now over the past five years: and it just keeps growing!
At the Level of npm
We also notice strong growth for NextJS when looking at its number of downloads on npm:
Industries Using NextJS
NextJS is particularly appreciated in sectors that demand, as we have seen, high loading performance or SEO-optimized pages.
If you look closely, you will find projects generally from these sectors:
- In e-commerce: because NextJS allows having dynamic pages that update every x seconds while keeping a static page (which improves page loading speed);
- In social platforms: it's no wonder that NextJS is found in Twitch or TikTok, NextJS is used to load data more quickly by hydrating pages with dynamic information;
- In blogs and other content-rich sites: because once created, you can ask NextJS to cache the page content to serve it very quickly to a user who wants to view it later, which is ideal for search engines.
A Rapidly Growing Job Market
For the year 2025, there is significant growth in demand for NextJS developers (following the growth in demand for React developers).
According to Indeed, there are over 41% additional job postings for NextJS developer positions compared to last year.
Thus, the job market seems mature for developers who master NextJS.
A Framework in Constant Evolution
NextJS doesn't just rest on its laurels: it's a framework that adapts to its time.
Firstly, because NextJS follows the latest developments in React. Thus, all the latest features of React are 100% compatible with NextJS.
Secondly, because NextJS goes even further: by offering additional features that greatly assist in developing projects easily with React.
For example, NextJS has a completely invisible routing system.
It takes the basics of what you could have with HTML. To create an address about.html, you just needed to create the file about.html.
With NextJS, you simply create a folder about and add a file page.jsx (or page.tsx if you are using TypeScript).
A Very Rich Ecosystem
Compatible with the Same Libraries as React
The huge advantage of NextJS is that the framework is compatible with all React libraries in the world.
Thus, everything you used with React is compatible with NextJS.
Whether it's:
- Tailwind CSS - to no longer bother with style sheets, for example;
- Firebase or MongoDB - to no longer bother with databases;
- React-toastify - to no longer bother with notifications.
With Its Own Libraries Developed for NextJS
NextJS also has its own libraries to facilitate development.
Some are developed directly by the NextJS team, such as the Image component of NextJS (which is integrated directly into the core framework) or the Link component.
But some features go even further by offering a native integration with Google Fonts, for example.
Finally, other libraries are developed by external people to the NextJS team, such as the Next-Auth library which allows you to easily add registration and login to a NextJS project with an email address and password, Google, GitHub, as well as hundreds of other possibilities.
A Global Community
An Active and Growing Community
Just like React, NextJS benefits from a huge global community of developers who regularly exchange ideas and solutions. Thanks to this community, new libraries are created to enrich the NextJS ecosystem.
The advantage of a large community is having great ease in learning NextJS, because every problem has already been solved online in many places:
- Forums like Stack Overflow, Reddit or Discord (including here is ours)
- Contributions on GitHub
Resources to Learn
Learning NextJS has never been easier. Numerous resources exist to master this framework:
- The official documentation available here, which explains well how to start your first website;
- YouTube videos which are interesting but rarely up to date;
- Dedicated NextJS training like this training you can start for free, which explains everything you need to know to master NextJS.
Alternatives to NextJS
NextJS vs Gatsby
Gatsby and NextJS are often compared for their abilities to generate static sites. However, NextJS goes much further and has a whole range of very practical features for developing projects quickly.
For example, the hybrid approach allowing both server-side rendering and static rendering with NextJS entirely sets it apart from Gatsby, which is primarily oriented towards static generation.
NextJS vs NuxtJS
NuxtJS is the equivalent of NextJS for VueJS. It is not at all the same library as React. The two cannot absolutely be compared.
What is the Future of NextJS?
NextJS has a bright future ahead. Adapting each year to changes in React, NextJS allows benefiting from both the advantages of the latter while solving all the disadvantages of development with React (such as using a third-party library to create multiple pages, for example).
Due to the importance of natural referencing for a company, NextJS can only be a good decision for anyone wanting to become an expert in web development on JavaScript-related technologies.
Conclusion
Learning NextJS in 2025 is an excellent decision for all developers who wish to master a JavaScript framework based on React while prioritizing their project's performance.
If you want to go further, take a look here. You won't be disappointed. 😉
