The Short Answer
Use Next.js if you're building a website, landing page, e-commerce store, or any project where SEO and performance matter.
Use plain React (Vite) if you're building an internal dashboard, admin panel, or app behind a login wall where SEO doesn't matter.
What Next.js Gives You (That React Doesn't)
Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
Next.js can render pages on the server, sending fully-formed HTML to the browser. This means:
- Faster first paint
- Better SEO (search engines see real content)
- Improved accessibility
- Your app is entirely behind authentication
- SEO doesn't matter (dashboards, internal tools)
- You want a lighter setup
- You're building a widget or embeddable component
Static Site Generation (SSG)
For pages that don't change often, Next.js can pre-build them at deploy time. This is incredibly fast — pages load from CDN in milliseconds.
File-Based Routing
No need for React Router. Drop a file in the /app directory and it's a route. Simple and powerful.
Built-in Optimization
Next.js automatically handles image optimization, font loading, code splitting, and more. You get performance for free.
When Plain React Makes Sense
Not every project needs Next.js. Plain React with Vite is great when:
Our Recommendation
For 90% of our client projects, we use Next.js. The performance, SEO, and developer experience benefits are too significant to ignore. The 10% where we don't are typically internal tools where React + Vite is the better fit.
Need help choosing? Book a free consultation and we'll recommend the right stack for your project.