Next.js is infuriating

Half these issues stem from a relative misunderstanding of exactly where the code is running. Next.js has layers upon layers upon layers due to the interplay between the browser, middleware, edge vs. node, SSR... It's an enormous amount of complexity and it really only fits under the following set of circumstances:

  * You sell a B2C product to a potentially global audience, so edge semantics actually help with latency issues
  * You're willing to pay Vercel a high premium for them to host
  * You have no need for background task processing (Vercel directs you to marketplace/partner services), so your architecture never pushes you to host on another provider.

Otherwise, just tread the well-trod path and stick to either a react-vite SPA or something like Rails doing ordinary SSR.

> Otherwise, just tread the well-trod path and stick to either a react-vite SPA or something like Rails doing ordinary SSR.

Just write your SPA the grown up way. Write your APIs in a language and framework well suited to such work (pick your poison, Rails, Spring, whatever Microsoft is calling this year's .NET web technology). And write your front-end in Typescript.

There's absolutely no reason to tightly couple your front-end and backend, despite how many Javascript developers learned the word "isomorphic" in 2015.