React vs Next.js: Which Should Your UK Business Choose in 2026?

React vs. Next.js comes up in almost every new web project conversation. Clients ask because they've heard both terms, know they're related, but aren't sure which they need. Developers argue about it because framework preferences run deep.

The honest answer: for most new web projects in 2026, Next.js is the right starting point. But understanding why — and the exceptions — is genuinely useful for making informed decisions about your technology.

Understanding the Relationship

React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It handles how components look and behave on screen, but doesn't prescribe how you structure your application, route between pages, fetch data, or optimise for search engines.

Next.js is a framework built on top of React. It makes specific decisions about all of the above — routing, data fetching, rendering strategies, image optimisation, and more. You're still writing React components; Next.js provides the structure around them.

The analogy: React is a powerful engine. Next.js is a car with that engine already installed, with seats, tyres, and a steering wheel. You could build the car yourself (pure React with your own tooling choices) — but for most business applications, you want the car.

What Next.js Adds Over Plain React

The additions Next.js makes to React are significant for business applications:

When Next.js is the Right Choice

Next.js is appropriate for the vast majority of new business web applications. Use it when:

• SEO matters: marketing pages, content sites, e-commerce, anything that needs to rank in Google. Next.js renders HTML on the server, which search engines can read; pure React renders on the client, which is historically worse for SEO
• Performance is a priority: Next.js has strong defaults for code splitting, image loading, and font optimisation. A well-built Next.js app consistently achieves better Core Web Vitals than the equivalent React SPA
• The application has both public (marketing) and authenticated (app) sections: Next.js handles this elegantly in a single codebase
• You want to minimise infrastructure: Next.js API routes let you build backend endpoints in the same project as your frontend, reducing operational complexity for small teams
• Time to market matters: the structure Next.js provides speeds up development, especially for teams that aren't building React applications every day

When Plain React Might Be Better

There are genuine cases where a pure React SPA (single-page application) is more appropriate than Next.js:

• Internal tools and dashboards that are fully behind authentication: if no page of your application needs to be indexed by Google, the SEO advantages of Next.js don't apply
• When the backend is a completely separate service: if you already have a robust API (Node.js, Python, Go) and you want a clean separation of concerns, a React SPA calling that API is perfectly reasonable
• When you need very specific client-side routing behaviour: complex SPAs with intricate client-side state sometimes find Next.js routing restrictions frustrating
• When the team is deeply experienced in React but not Next.js: framework switching costs are real, though Next.js is learnable quickly for experienced React developers

Next.js in 2026: The App Router

Next.js went through a major architectural shift with the App Router (introduced in Next.js 13, stabilised in 14). This is the modern way to build Next.js applications, replacing the older Pages Router.

The App Router introduces React Server Components — components that run on the server and send HTML to the browser, never running in the browser themselves. This enables significant performance improvements for data-heavy pages and reduces the JavaScript sent to the client.

For new projects in 2026, use the App Router. For existing Next.js projects on the Pages Router, migrating is worthwhile but should be done deliberately — the mental model is different enough to cause friction if rushed.

TypeScript: Add It from Day One

Whether you choose React or Next.js, add TypeScript. It's not optional for any serious business application in 2026.

TypeScript catches a significant class of bugs at compile time rather than runtime — wrong property names, incorrect function signatures, null reference errors. For a business application that will be maintained and extended over years, TypeScript pays back its initial overhead many times over.

Both React and Next.js have excellent TypeScript support. The Next.js CLI creates TypeScript projects by default.

Common Alternatives and When to Consider Them

For UK businesses without strong pre-existing framework preferences, React/Next.js has the largest talent pool to hire from, the most extensive ecosystem, and the strongest backing from a major technology company (Vercel).

The Recommendation

For new business web applications in 2026: use Next.js 14 with the App Router and TypeScript. This is the default choice, and it's right for the majority of projects.

Exceptions are real, and worth discussing with your development team if you have specific requirements that push toward them. But if you're starting from scratch and asking which you should use — Next.js.

The most important thing is not the framework choice — it's the quality of the team using it. A great team with React will outperform a mediocre team with Next.js. Choose your technology thoughtfully, then invest in the people building with it.