Gatsby vs Next.js in 2021

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about Gatsby vs Next. A lot has changed in the last year — what are the differences, and do the recommendations from Syntax 120 still hold true?

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Show Notes

03:34 - Server-rendered

• Both do server rendered
• Gatsby is gone at build time
• Next is done at build and on deploy

05:26 - Static generation

• getStaticProps()
• getServerSideProps()

08:25 - Re-rendering pages

• Gatsby can be re-rendered and re-deployed - any CMS lets you do this on only the pages that changed.
• Gatsby-cloud
• Next.js has the revalidate flag that will re-render when stale

18:54 - Data management

• Gatsby has a built in GraphQL API feature with
• Next.js has nothing - it’s not their problem. Use Apollo, or SWR, React Query, or redux, or whatever you want.

23:16 - Client-side data

• Neither do anything, next.

26:33 - Dynamic Pages

• List of 100 shoes, each one gets a page
• List of four types of shoes: basketball, runners, casual, bowling, etc.
• List of 10 colors: each color gets its own page.
• List of 12 sizes, each size gets its own page.
• Now it gets complicated when you do this:
  • Show me basketball shoes, in red, in size 5
  • 600 pages minimum
  • What about size 6+7?
  • Then you get into having to fetch data on the client side - but all your data is in GraphQL?!
  • The queries are different!
• Gatsby will get “Hosted GraphQL”: https://twitter.com/kylemathews/status/1252803849775009794

30:41 - Routing

• Neither do nested routing still
• Both do folder based wrapper

34:50 - Hosting

• Anywhere

35:54 - Images

• Compression/resize
• Lazy loading
• SVG
• Blur up
• Next 10 released first revision of Next.js image
  • It’s not as good as Gatbsy-image
  • Must specify width and height, whereas gatsby has fixed and fluid
  • Compression
  • No blur up
  • Yes lazy loading
  • both don’t support gifs
  • Gatbsy requires annoying GraphQL query OR another plugin like MDX to do it
    • Not for long! https://twitter.com/ascorbic/status/1320770231657238529
  • Next.js is just