Next.js 14: A New Era
Web development technologies are evolving at an unfathomable rate, and my favorite JavaScript framework, Next.js, is no exception.
Recently, Vercel launched Next.js version 14 for which I am very excited about. This version brings about major performance improvements, stability improvements and much more.
Join me today as we take a step into the future of web development and indulge in the newest technologies. I will expand your web development arsenal with the latest version of Next.js and give you the best shot at landing your dream job as a web developer.
Without further ado, lets dig in!
Table of Contents
- Turbopack
- Server Actions
- Metadata
Turbopack
Turbopack is a rust-based compiler written by Vercel for Next.js that is much faster than conventional alternatives such as babel.
Turbopack was released along with Next.js 13 as an experimental feature and was very limited. With the release of Next.js 14 however, around 90% of the unit tests are now passing, greatly increasing the stability of Turbopack.
Additionally, starting up and hot reloading your Next.js application will see major improvements in speed as specified by the Next.js team:
These improvements are fantastic and will positively influence developer experience.
Server Actions
I was always a big fan of Next.js 13 server actions, and so I was excited when they released an update for them.
Most notably, server actions were an experimental feature with the release of Next.js 13 a few months ago. Now, with the release of Next.js 14, Server Actions are 100% stable and ready for production use.
Server actions reduce the need to write API route code, and they provide end-to-end type safety between the client and server all within a single network roundtrip.
Metadata
In Next.js 14, Vercel has decoupled blocking and non-blocking metadata.
Before your page content is streamed from the server, the viewport, colorScheme and themeColor meta tags need to be sent to the client; these meta tags are referred to as blocking metadata, and they’ve been decoupled from the rest of the non-blocking metadata.
This means the above tags have now been deprecated and will be removed in the next version update for Next.js 14 with replacements such as the viewport and generateViewport objects coming into the mix.
Conclusion
I hope I explained the new major features of Next.js 14 well enough, and inspired you to upgrade and reap the benefits put forth by the Vercel team.
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