As the world continues to shift and favor an online marketplace, companies must stay apprised of the latest development tools to optimize consumer interactions.
A fast, user-friendly web app will encourage conversions and repeat traffic. On the other hand, a glitchy or slow experience can cost you customers and valuable traffic.
If a user finds themselves waiting for more than a few seconds for your web page to load, they're likely to leave your website altogether.
In the eternal quest for optimized speeds, many developers are turning their sites to JAMstack and Next JS. These tools may be the keys to unlocking faster and more secure web performance for your pages.
#What is JAMstack?
Simply put, JAMstack is an architecture that relies on two key aspects of development:
- Decoupling
- Pre-rendering
When you use JAMstack, the front-end of your webpage will be prebuilt into static pages. This allows your sites to be served by a CDN, which reduces overall complexity and improves speeds.
JAMstack is comprised of three main components. These are JavaScript, APIs, and Markup. This is where the developers of JAMstack derived the somewhat unusual name. By stacking these three tools, JAMstack makes app building easier and more efficient.
For more info on the JAMstack, you might like these posts:
- A Fast Overview of the JAMstack
- 6 JAMstack Best Pratices
- How to Hire the Best JAMstack Developers
- The Most Useful Gatsby JS plugins
- What is Gatsby JS?
- What is Nuxt JS?
#What is Next JS?
Next JS is an open-source development framework. Specifically, it is used for front-end development and is based on React.
It is useful for developing single-page applications that rely on JavaScript. Since JAMstack architecture is JS based, Next JS can be used seamlessly with it.
It eliminates the need for completing complex configurations. It relies heavily on preset JS modules, which allows you to easily export existing application components and download new modules from NPM.
#Benefits of Next JS
The rise of Next JS’s popularity in the ultra-competitive web development space is due to its many benefits.
#Better Web Performance
One of the best perks of Next JS is the options it provides for fetching data.
It comes with two forms of pre-rendering:
- Static Generation: The HTML is generated at build time
- Server-side Rendering: The HTML is generated on each request
Static Generation is the recommended approach as your web pages can be cached by a CDN, and with no extra configuration.
#Better SEO
Because Next JS pre-renders every page, using it can result in better SEO performance as well.
Out-of-the-box a website that uses Next JS is indexable and crawable.
#Automatic Code Splitting
One of the most common causes for slow web performance is loading extraneous JavaScript (JS( and stylesheets (CSS).
Next JS only loads the necessary JS and CSS for any particular page.
This will boost performance as there's ultimately less downloading on the user's part.
#A Better Developer Experience
A critical aspect of web development that must not be over looked is the technologies that the web developers use.
Some technologies are better to work with as they require less administration and configuration, and are more flexible. Next JS is one of those.
The reasons we mentioned before like the code splitting, out-of-the-box SEO and the data fetcing flexibility are all examples of how Next JS removes some of the configuration normally required when building web apps.
Other benefits like this include File-system routing which will make every component in the pages directory a route.
Next JS provides Fast Refresh, a fast and reliable live-editing experience. This lets you see any changes that you make in development live on the website immediately.
Overall, Next JS makes for a more streamlined development process. This reduces your overall cost and allows you to get your final product sooner. In the competitive digital marketplace, resource and time management are key to the long-term success of your business.
#Other reasons why Next JS is a fantastic choice for your JAMstack
- TypeScript Support: Automatic TypeScript configuration and compilation
- API Routes: Easily create API endpoints to provide backend support
- Image Optimization: Automatic image optimizations with instant builds
- File-system Routing: Every component in the 'pages' directory becomes a route
#How Can I Learn Next JS?
As you can see, the combination of Next JS and JAMstack makes for a user-friendly development experience. Not only that, but it also results in your customers having access to a superior final product.
Both JAMstack and Next JS offer tons of free resources on their pages. They even include interactive tutorials that will walk you through using their framework. You can use this information to improve your knowledge of these two excellent web development tools.
However, the most effective way of learning Next JS and JAMstack is to partner with a team of specialists that are experienced in its use. In the past, gaining access to such a team was costly and challenging, but that’s not the case anymore, thanks to With Pulp!
#Looking for JAMstack Specialists? With Pulp Can Help!
With Pulp is a team of product managers, engineers, designers, and artists. We are a human-centered product development collaborative that can elevate your customer’s experience. One way that we accomplish this goal is by bridging the divide between artistry and technology.
We specialize in JAMstack development and offer high-quality development and design services to meet the needs of any client. If you would like to learn more about these services or elevate your online presence, contact us today!