Next.js is infuriating

Posted by Bogdanp 9/2/2025

1029 points | 578 commentspage 4

Byamarro 9/2/2025|

What I've found is that NuxtJS is miles ahead in DX. In NextJs it feels like their architecture stands in your way while in NuxtJS everything just works.

strickjb9 9/2/2025|

Completely agree. Nuxt is intuitive - convention-over-configuration and auto-imports remove a ton of boilerplate. The key is treating it as an app framework, not a backend solution - within that scope, it handles modern SSR/SPA complexity.

coxmi 9/2/2025||

Deno Fresh seems like it has the right approach. It’s not complicated, the docs are refreshingly simple, and it handles both server and client logic without getting confused.

It’s just a shame it’s Deno-only (although I completely understand why)

upcoming-sesame 9/2/2025||

I think HonoX is similar to Fresh, with the Interactive Islands

https://fresh.deno.dev/docs/concepts/islands

https://github.com/honojs/honox?tab=readme-ov-file#interacti...

coxmi 9/2/2025||

Ooo nice, I didn’t know about this. Thanks for posting, looks interesting, and framework agnostic to boot :)

(Edit: well, potentially at least)

I did try to make something like this a couple years back to deal with multiple renderers and a choose-your own set of various SSR techniques [0], but didn’t get very far with it in the end. I should have based it on Hono really, to get web standard Request objects.

[0] https://github.com/coxmi/ssr-tools

nobleach 9/2/2025|||

I had a project slated to use this framework. The pilot went fairly well. Fresh has the right ideas on static vs dynamic islands. In the end, we deployed with Astro - which also has similar ideas. In the end, I just wasn't able to get full buy-in on Deno.

coxmi 9/2/2025||

That’s a shame, I’ve also been through much the same process.

Astro is pretty good too, though. I’m not 100% sure on some of the decisions it’s made, and personally don’t enjoy the need for new file formats and domain specific languages, but it does a half decent job of being framework-agnostic despite a few pain points.

agos 9/2/2025|||

Fresh looks promising but still has no support for any CSS solution that is not Tailwind.

Edit: I just saw an email from two hours ago that they added support for any CSS solution because they just migrated to Vite. This is promising!

robertjpayne 9/2/2025||

I feel like Fresh being Deno only isn't the primary issue. It's based on Preact which is really just a non-starter for so many because it isolates away too much of the react ecosystem instantly.

coxmi 9/2/2025||

I don’t disagree on that front, the React ecosystem is huge, and rebuilding a load of complex components is often beyond the budgets of many greenfield projects.

I also don’t believe a React monoculture is good, so a growing Preact or Solid ecosystem would be really positive, alongside growing web/DOM standards to ultimately make these frameworks more of a light wrapper around some trivial updates.

React and Next.js, to me, have done the typical architecture astronaut thing, and it feels like they’ve both increased the barrier to entry and just made everything a little more complicated than it really needs to be for much of the web.

867567838694 9/2/2025||

Next.js is a cancer. I wish more people would see it sooner before Vercel completely destroys ReactJS.

timcobb 9/2/2025|

I thought NodeJS itself was the cancer*. Hard to keep up with all the cancers I guess ;)

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3062271

moritzwarhier 9/2/2025||

It's not listed under N

https://web.archive.org/web/20190612110518/http://kill-or-cu...

francisduvivier 9/2/2025||

I recently migrated 2 projects away from Next.js to Vite. It was a lot of work, Next.JS handles quite a lot of stuff: translations, authentication, bundling, css stuff, caching... But it was very much worth it for lowering my daily infuration. I don't think I'll be using NextJS again if I don't have to.

haltcase 9/2/2025|

In what way does Next.js handle translations or authentication? It doesn't prescribe or even do much to simplify either of those things.

francisduvivier 9/2/2025||

Well you have next-i18next and NextAuth.js, those integrations with Next.js help for getting something running quickly.

8cvor6j844qw_d6 9/2/2025||

I'm involved in starting up a project with Next.js. Can experienced devs let me know your opinion or any potential pitfalls?

Long story short it's a proof of concept demo/exploratory project.

Currently, using Next.js app router, multi-root routes for stuff like (marketing), (app), (login), etc.

Db is Neon for the branching, will probably include Vercel AI SDK for AI stuff since its likely I'll be asked to include some AI functionality.

The only worry is I'm unsure with how this serverless layer/backend? interact with user authentication / authorization when used with the BetterAuth.

Currently hosting on Vercel, I feel like Next.js is married with Vercel for hosting. Although maybe because I'm unfamiliar with it, since Next.js made it quite simple and straightforward to do host quick proof-of-concepts on Vercel.

masto 9/2/2025|

I don’t know if this counts as experienced, but I’ve spent about a year exploring Next.js, the last 6 months of which transitioning from exploring to building a serious project.

I understand the author’s frustrations. I have had similar ones when it comes to middleware and other parts of Next.js. I’ve also had those kinds of frustrations with every piece of software and framework I’ve ever used. A lot of times they stem from trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, and it only gets better when I finally develop the right mental model for how the thing works.

As a web developer going back to CGI scripts in the 90s, all this server and client side rendering, edge runtimes, etc., is quite foreign. But when I find myself screaming “why won’t it let me do this?”, the answer is often “because it doesn’t make sense to do that”. Auth is one of the places where that happened, and going through the process of “but why can’t I look the user up in my database from middleware” was a big part of wrapping my head around the parts of Next.js that I had been ignoring.

As far as being married to Vercel for hosting, not at all, if you don’t choose to use all their stuff. The sample Docker build they have works just fine to deploy anywhere, in my experience.

Maybe I’m speaking mostly out of ignorance of not having tried dozens of other modern TS web frameworks (I was on a big tech island for a decade and not in touch with what the cool kids were up to), but I rather like Next.js. I may feel differently when I want to start adding native mobile apps and realize I was lulled into omitting a clean API layer, but for now, adding features has been pretty smooth.

anonzzzies 9/2/2025||

As much as I don't like most things about nextjs (I could write a vastly larger blogpost about it but won't as I like to keep my heartrate down), it feels like claude was trained specifically for it. In our experience, claude code is better at nextjs than other frameworks.

latentsea 9/2/2025||

That seems like the most unfortunate of reasons to choose it as a framework for new projects, though. I hope that doesn't become the deciding factor in the future.

anonzzzies 9/2/2025||

Yes, we try not to do that. But I know very many people do.

jjani 9/2/2025||

Significantly better than just React and a Node backend? I doubt it, what's the comparison here?

hinkley 9/3/2025||

> This is what real engineering looks like. SvelteKit is a Vercel product. How is the flagship offering worse than what is essentially a side project. What the hell?

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

A big project becomes design by committee. If the initial kernel was sound, it can go on for quite some time. If it wasn't, it takes herculean effort to turn such a boat. And you will likely never be thanked for it.

Starting a new project to show people how it's done works as well or better than any amount of cajoling or badgering. But you still may not be thanked for it.

jcuenod 9/2/2025||

Posts like this really mean "this doesn't work like I expect it to based on my background with some other technology".

But in this case, I tried in earnest to use nextjs for a project with auth & stripe, etc. this past week, and I can't believe how frustrating it is to get stupid things like modal dialogs to work properly in the client.

I have tons of experience with React SPAs. But the client/server divide in Next remains quite inscrutable to me to the extent that I'm just going to start again with Django (where I nearly started it in the first place).

So yes, it doesn't work like I expect it to either...

robertoandred 9/2/2025|

Huh? Modals work the same way they do anywhere else.

rob 9/2/2025||

I think too many newer "developers" are relying on AI tools trained on popular frameworks like Next.js to create things, and Vercel's loving this because they're the "go-to" in the end when you need to deploy something based on this stack.

There's no real alternative for these developers because they weren't brought up to understand server/networking fundamentals, how to operate a VPS, etc. Vercel manages to make this even more confusing for them by blurring the line between server and client, "edge" functions, etc, while all behind variable pricing.

gg2222 9/2/2025|

For people wanting to try something else, I recommend SolidJS and SolidStart. Personally I never tried Next.js exactly because it feels like too many decisions are being made for me without having any choice. And I don't trust frameworks like that.

Depending on the project, just write an SPA with an API server, or if it is a static website just prerender it and serve on Cloudflare. I don't get the appeal of all the complexity. If you need SSR for SEO, then SolidStart is a nice and simple solution.

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