The Founder's Dilemma
Every week at our Andheri office, we meet founders building the next big FinTech or E-commerce platform. The technical question is always the same: "My developer says use React, but I hear Next.js is better for SEO. What do I do?"
In this guide, we strip away the jargon and explain exactly which one makes money for your business.
React: The Engine
React is a library for building user interfaces. It's like the engine of a car. It's powerful, flexible, and maintained by Meta (Facebook).
- Pros: Huge talent pool in Mumbai, great for dashboards (SaaS), very interactive.
- Cons: "Client-Side Rendering" means Google bots might see a blank page before data loads. Not great for SEO out of the box.
Next.js: The Racecar
Next.js is a framework built *on top* of React. If React is the engine, Next.js is the fully assembled car with GPS, AC, and turbo.
- Pros: "Server-Side Rendering" (SSR) sends a fully formed page to Google. Rank #1 faster. Super fast page loads.
- Cons: slightly higher hosting complexity (needs a Node server), though Vercel/AWS makes this easy.
The Verdict: When to use what?
Scenario A: E-commerce Store / Marketing Site
Winner: Next.js. You need SEO. If people can't search for your products on Google, you don't exist. Next.js is built for this.
Scenario B: Internal Admin Dashboard / CRM
Winner: React (Vite). SEO doesn't matter behind a login screen. Pure React is simpler and cheaper to host.
Why We Use Next.js for Most Clients
At DeveloperBee, we default to Next.js for 90% of client projects in Mumbai. Why? Because in a competitive market like India, speed and discovery are everything. A 1-second delay can cost you 20% of conversions.
Need a high-performance web app? Talk to our Tech Leads