React and NextJS are tools becoming more popular this days, with a lot of similarities, and people often ask what are the diffences between this two and which one should i use?

Before we can talk about the differences between this two we need to first understand what exactly they are.

React

React is a frontend library for building user interfaces with JavaScript and JSX. React works based on components, which are JavaScript functions that return JSX.
React also makes use of the Virtual DOM, which uses state management and only re-renders components that changes instead of the whole DOM.
React also provides us with hooks, such as useState and more which are used to basically to control state changes and side effects.

NextJS

Next.js on the other hand isn't a library, but a React framework, NextJS uses React but only as a framework of React. Next.js offer's a lot of additional features to React such as server side rendering, static optimization e.t.c.
Next.js also allows you to build a complete full stack project with it's API routes

Major Differences

React

• React is a JavaScript Library

• In React all JavaScript Code is loaded by the browser

• React is developed by Meta

• You can only build frontend user interfaces with React

Next.js

• Next.js is a React framework

• Next.js supports server side rendering, meaning not all JavaScript code is loaded by the browser

• Next.js is developed by Vercel

• Next.js allows you to build a complete full stack, thanks to it's API routes

Conclusion

Use React if you want to build a simple web interface, that has a continous life state changing.
But for Larger applications requiring complex backends, use Next.js to offer server side rendering and all in one full stack capabilities.

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