"Serverless" as the only runtime target

[garnerp]

Can anyone clarify what "serverless as the only runtime target" means for the roadmap of next.js or organizations that run outside of NOW?

[Timer]

Can you please point to what you're referring to? This doesn't sound like an accurate depiction of what we're doing.

[garnerp]

Comments in PR's like this:

#10731

[timneutkens]

Can anyone clarify what "serverless as the only runtime target" means for the roadmap of next.js or organizations that run outside of NOW?

Hey @garnerp!

Currently Next.js has 2 "output targets":

• Server
• Serverless

The main difference between the 2 is that serverless would output "single file bundles" in it's initial form. Later on we added another target called experimental-serverless-trace, this target is much more optimized version of serverless that works more like how server would currently, except it's better than server as it no longer requires a full node_modules to be shipped.

Our efforts right now are to consolidate all targets into one that covers all cases from server to serverless.

So what does this actually mean?

• Server target builds will be smaller and execution will be faster than it is currently as they won't require node_modules to be shipped with the application
• Serverless target builds will still output very small serverless functions. Main difference with the current serverless target is that when you're not using ZEIT (ZEIT already forces serverless-trace instead of serverless) you get less build failures because of node_modules.
• Less divergence in the codebase because of differences between server/serverless (as the divergence is no longer needed)

So basically we're bringing optimizations found in optimizing sites hosted on ZEIT Now to all users including those who use the server target.

Also this prepares for the future:

• Will eventually allow for streaming rendering (this is one of the reasons Gerald is working on this)
• Will improve React Concurrent mode support

These updates will be made without breaking changes as usual, including custom server for example. We have an extensive integration test suite to ensure this.

[garnerp]

@timneutkens Thanks for the detailed explanation and the work that Zeit is leading. Amazing!

[timneutkens]

Happy to explain! I'm personally very excited about these changes.