Why we ditched Next.js and never looked back

Northflank's experience with Next.js highlights significant challenges faced when scaling applications, particularly concerning performance and SEO. Despite Next.js's promise of providing an all-in-one solution for server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), and SEO, Northflank encountered persistent performance bottlenecks and inefficiencies that led to a decline in SEO rankings and frequent site crashes during high traffic. The company found that Next.js's tight coupling with Vercel and its shifting framework philosophies exacerbated these issues. As a result, Northflank decided to replace Next.js with a custom-built React SSR solution, which resulted in dramatically improved page load times and restored SEO performance. This switch underscored the importance of having control over the technology stack to ensure scalability and reliability, and it demonstrated that building a high-performance SSR setup is feasible without relying on complex frameworks.