Gatsby vs Next

[SachaG]

I would love to see a comparison between Gatsby and Next.js, which is a project with similar goals but a different approach. Maybe something like this?

[KyleAMathews]

Yeah, that'd be useful for the website. Both projects definitely have very similar goals and ways of doing things. It seems like a lot of projects are converging on similar ideas.

From my quick looks around the main differences seem to be:

• dynamic vs static rendering which have different tradeoffs
• Gatsby has strong opinions about data fetching where Next.js leaves that up to you.

[dbismut]

Am I wrong or Next.js doesn't support static site generation?
vercel/next.js#70

For me that's a huge bonus of Gatsby. But I guess that's what you meant by dynamic vs static rendering.

[erlend-sh]

Am I totally off on my understanding of next.js here, or could that framework basically be used to provide an alternative content server for Gatsby, similar to how you'd use Contentful or DatoCMS?

On a different note, @MoOx' Phenomic would probably be a good fit for such a comparison as well.

[SachaG]

@erlend-sh I don't really think Next.js can be used for that, my understanding is that it would serve HTML markup, not raw JSON data. I might be wrong though.

[dbismut]

My understanding is that DatoCMS, as a static site CMS, would be a perfect fit for Gatsby. I imagine that would require some work with DatoCMS so that Gatsby is part of their supported generators?

Since Next.js has dynamic server rendering, Contentful or Prismic would be ideal so that the content fetched from their API is served with the HTML generated by Next.js.

@erlend-sh Indeed it looks like Phenomic is a direct alternative to Gatsby.

[KyleAMathews]

@dbismut DatoCMS is already working on that!

• https://github.com/datocms/gatsby-example
• https://twitter.com/datocms/status/787223422728372225

[dbismut]

Oh wow very cool :)

[MoOx]

FYI, after discussing with now and Next creator (rauchg) at dotJS about next export and static rendering, I am currently trying to help Next.js team to think about a static export feature, so at some point we will be able to generate a static version of a next website.
After that I may refactor Phenomic to rely on Next framework.

I guess a direct comparison between Gatsby and Next don't really make sense: it will be clearly easier to make static* a website with Gatsby/Phenomic than with next directly (next will never support markdown out of the box (and things like that) as it's a minimalist framework).

*WE USE REACT SO IT'S DYNAMIC, right?

[erlend-sh]

I am currently trying to help Next.js team to think about a static export feature, so at some point we will be able to generate a static version of a next website.
After that I may refactor Phenomic to rely on Next framework.

I just wanna say I think that sounds like a really cool direction for Phenomic! Although I have no right to be, it does always bother me a tiny bit when two projects so conceptually and technologically similar - React-based static site generator - can't find a way to collaborate (that's not to say navigating that type of collaboration is easy!).

But with this change of direction for Phenomic, you'd be making a fundamentally different type of CMS with its own unique feature offering. ❤️ it!

[plouc]

next export available for preview https://zeit.co/blog/next3-preview#next-export

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[goldensunliu]

@dbismut so about #519 (comment), next now support static exports as well!