Next.js is an open-source React-based web application framework developed by Vercel that provides server-side rendering, static site generation, and hybrid rendering strategies out of the box — solving the performance and SEO limitations of purely client-side React applications. Where a standard React app renders entirely in the browser (creating slow initial load times and poor crawlability), Next.js renders pages on the server or at build time, delivering pre-built HTML to the browser for fast LCP scores and full search engine indexability. Key features include file-based routing (each file in the /pages or /app directory becomes a URL), API routes (serverless functions colocated with the frontend), built-in image optimization, and the App Router (introduced in Next.js 13) with React Server Components for granular server-client rendering control. In the WordPress ecosystem, Next.js is the most popular framework for headless WordPress frontends, commonly paired with WPGraphQL or the REST API to source content.
Glossary entry
