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.
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.