Next.js Static Exports

Introduction

Next.js is a popular framework for building server-side rendered (SSR) websites. One of its key features is the ability to generate static files for your website, allowing you to deploy your website as a set of simple HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. This approach is highly scalable and can help improve your website's performance.

Syntax

To export your website as a set of static files, you simply need to add the following command to your package.json file:

"scripts": {
  "export": "next export"
}

You can then run the command with npm run export.

Example

Here's an example of how to use static exports in a Next.js project:

// pages/index.js
import React from 'react';

const Home = () => {
  return <div>Hello, World!</div>
}

export default Home;

// next.config.js
module.exports = {
  /* exportPathMap is required when using static exports */
  exportPathMap: async function() {
    return {
      '/': { page: '/' }
    };
  }
};

Output

Running npm run export will generate a out/ directory containing static files for your website. These files can be deployed to any static hosting provider, such as Amazon S3 or Netlify.

Explanation

By default, Next.js generates a server that's used to serve pages to the user on the fly. Static exports allow you to generate static files that can be served directly by a static hosting provider. This allows you to take advantage of the scalability and performance benefits of a CDN or other caching service.

Static exports involve pre-rendering all pages at build time, so they are ready to be served as static files. When a user requests a page, the server serves the pre-rendered page instead of rendering it on the fly.

Next.js automatically generates an index.html file for each page in your website, along with any CSS and JavaScript files required for that page. This results in a complete and optimized set of files that can be deployed quickly and easily.

Use

Static exports are a good fit for websites that have non-dynamic content, such as blogs, portfolios, or marketing websites. They can help improve website performance by reducing page load times and increasing scalability.

Important Points

• Static exports require that all website content be pre-rendered at build time
• Routing configuration (/pages or /routes) will be defined in exportPathMap which will be used to generate HTML files for every pages
• Multiple links have to be specially generated for each page to be indexed in SEO

Summary

Next.js static exports allow you to generate a fully optimized set of static files that can be deployed to a variety of hosting providers. This approach can help improve your website's performance and scalability, making it a great choice for static content like blogs, portfolios, and marketing websites. It's important to understand the syntax and configuration required to generate static exports, and consider the use cases where this approach makes sense.