Why not NextJS?

I've been a NextJS dev for some time now and I liked it because of how easy and nice it was to have a server and a client work together in one codebase without crazy tricks.

But when I began working on more complex projects I quickly run to many issues with this framework...

Performance

NextJS is slow. It just is. You literally have to sometimes wait like a minute after you run the dev command before being able to access anything. It is mostly due to using Webpack as its build tool and even with Turbo or Rspack, NextJS is still slow and using a TON of memory.

Not "full-stack"

Contrary to what you may think, NextJS is not actually a full-stack framework.

A full-stack framework brings its own utilities like database layer, auth, etc. NextJS is meant to be framework to build around with tools of your choice and that's not a bad thing. But if it's just a framework meant to be extended, it is much more difficult to do in NextJS, especially with Webpack. You can't access raw requests on the backend, access to only Webpack and NextJS plugins, etc.

Not very "hackable"

NextJS makes deep customization much more difficult because it's bound to certain choices:

• React as the frontend library
• Build system locked into Webpack/Turbopack
• Very limited low-level server control

Bloated

NextJS is bloated. It is more than 170 MB in package size, which can feel heavy for small or simple apps.

Limited hosting options

While you can host a Next.js app almost anywhere, the framework is heavily optimized for Vercel.

Many features like Edge Functions or corn jobs are far easier to integrate on Vercel.

It's much easier and cheaper if you just host your app on some VPS and use Coolify.