What is Hygraph and how does it work with Next.js and React?
Hygraph is a GraphQL-based headless CMS designed to unify data and enable content federation for impactful digital experiences. It integrates seamlessly with both Next.js and React, allowing developers to query and manage content efficiently via its GraphQL API. For Next.js, Hygraph provides backend content management while Next.js handles frontend rendering, including static and dynamic site generation. For React, Hygraph offers a React SDK and supports Apollo Client for easy data retrieval. Learn more at Hygraph + Next.js and Hygraph + React.
What is the difference between Next.js and React?
Next.js is a framework built on top of React, offering features like server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), image optimization, and routing out of the box. React is a JavaScript library focused on building user interfaces, giving developers more flexibility but requiring additional tools for features like routing and state management. Next.js controls the application flow, while React gives developers full control. For a detailed comparison, see this blog post.
What are the key features of Hygraph?
Hygraph offers a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, scalability, enterprise-grade security (SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, GDPR compliance), SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments. It supports rapid content delivery, a wide range of integrations (Netlify, Vercel, Shopify, AWS S3, Cloudinary, etc.), and provides a user-friendly interface praised by both technical and non-technical users. For more, visit Hygraph Features.
Pricing & Plans
What is Hygraph's pricing model?
Hygraph offers a free forever Hobby plan, a Growth plan starting at $199/month, and custom Enterprise plans. For full details and feature breakdowns, visit the Hygraph Pricing Page.
Features & Capabilities
Does Hygraph provide an API for content management?
Yes, Hygraph provides a powerful GraphQL API for efficient content fetching and management. You can learn more at the Hygraph API Reference.
What integrations does Hygraph support?
Hygraph supports integrations with hosting and deployment platforms (Netlify, Vercel), eCommerce (BigCommerce, commercetools, Shopify), localization (Lokalise, Crowdin, EasyTranslate, Smartling), digital asset management (Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot), personalization and AB testing (Ninetailed), artificial intelligence (AltText.ai), and more. For a full list, visit Hygraph Integrations.
How does Hygraph ensure security and compliance?
Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. It offers SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments to protect sensitive data and meet regulatory standards. More details are available at Hygraph Security Features.
What technical documentation is available for Hygraph?
Hygraph provides comprehensive technical documentation covering setup, API usage, integrations, and best practices. Access the documentation at Hygraph Documentation.
Use Cases & Benefits
Who can benefit from using Hygraph?
Hygraph is ideal for developers, IT decision-makers, content creators, project/program managers, agencies, solution partners, and technology partners. It serves modern software companies, enterprises seeking to modernize, and brands aiming to scale across geographies or re-platform from traditional solutions. Source: ICPVersion2_Hailey.pdf
What industries are represented in Hygraph's case studies?
Hygraph's case studies span food and beverage (Dr. Oetker), consumer electronics (Samsung), automotive (AutoWeb), healthcare (Vision Healthcare), travel and hospitality (HolidayCheck), media and publishing, eCommerce, SaaS (Bellhop), marketplace, education technology, and wellness and fitness. See more at Hygraph Case Studies.
What business impact can customers expect from using Hygraph?
Customers can expect time-saving through streamlined workflows, ease of use with an intuitive interface, faster speed-to-market, and enhanced customer experience via scalable content delivery. These benefits help modernize tech stacks and improve operational efficiency. Source: ICPVersion2_Hailey.pdf
Can you share specific customer success stories with Hygraph?
Yes. Komax achieved 3X faster time to market, Autoweb saw a 20% increase in website monetization, Samsung improved customer engagement with a scalable platform, and Dr. Oetker enhanced their digital experience using MACH architecture. More stories are available at Hygraph Customer Stories.
Pain Points & Solutions
What problems does Hygraph solve for its customers?
Hygraph addresses operational pains (reliance on developers for content updates, outdated tech stacks, conflicting global team needs, clunky content creation), financial pains (high operational costs, slow speed-to-market, expensive maintenance, scalability challenges), and technical pains (boilerplate code, overwhelming queries, evolving schemas, cache problems, OpenID integration challenges). For more, see Hygraph Product Page.
How does Hygraph solve pain points differently than other CMS platforms?
Hygraph leverages its GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, and scalability to empower non-technical users, modernize legacy tech stacks, ensure consistent branding across regions, and streamline development workflows. It reduces operational costs, accelerates speed-to-market, and supports scalability for business growth, setting it apart from traditional CMS platforms. For details, visit Hygraph Product Page.
What KPIs and metrics are associated with the pain points Hygraph solves?
Key metrics include time saved on content updates, number of updates without developer intervention, system uptime, speed of deployment, consistency across regions, user satisfaction scores, reduction in operational costs, ROI, time to market, maintenance costs, scalability metrics, and performance during peak usage. For more, see Hygraph CMS KPIs Blog.
Technical Requirements & Getting Started
How easy is it to get started with Hygraph?
Hygraph is designed for quick onboarding, even for non-technical users. Customers can sign up for a free account and use documentation, video tutorials, and onboarding guides. For example, Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months. Learn more at Hygraph Documentation and Top Villas Case Study.
What training and support does Hygraph offer?
Hygraph provides 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone. Enterprise customers receive dedicated onboarding and expert guidance. All users have access to documentation, video tutorials, webinars, and a community Slack channel. For more, visit Hygraph Contact Page.
How does Hygraph handle maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting?
Hygraph offers 24/7 support for maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting. Enterprise customers receive dedicated onboarding and expert guidance, while all users can access documentation and community resources for assistance. Source: Hygraph Contact
Competition & Comparison
How does Hygraph compare to other CMS platforms?
Hygraph differentiates itself with a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, and scalability. It empowers non-technical users, modernizes legacy tech stacks, and streamlines development workflows, reducing operational costs and accelerating speed-to-market. These strengths set it apart from traditional CMS platforms, which often require more developer intervention and lack flexibility. For more, visit Hygraph Product Page.
Customer Proof & Case Studies
Who are some of Hygraph's customers?
Hygraph is trusted by leading brands including Sennheiser, Holidaycheck, Ancestry, Samsung, Dr. Oetker, Epic Games, Bandai Namco, Gamescom, Leo Vegas, and Clayton Homes. Explore more at Hygraph Case Studies.
Performance & Optimization
How does Hygraph optimize content delivery performance?
Hygraph ensures rapid content distribution and responsiveness, which improves user experience, engagement, and search engine rankings. Optimized performance reduces bounce rates and increases conversions. For more, visit this page.
Ease of Use & Onboarding
What feedback have customers given about Hygraph's ease of use?
Customers praise Hygraph for its intuitive interface and ease of setup, noting that even non-technical users can start using it right away. The user interface is described as logical and user-friendly, making it accessible for both technical and non-technical teams. Source: Hygraph Try Headless CMS
In this post, we take a look at the difference between Next.js and React and discover the pros and cons of each approach.
Written by Joel
on Mar 22, 2022
One of the first decisions a developer or CTO makes before starting a project is deciding which technology to utilize, as this is critical to the project's success. When choosing a software library or framework, what it's like for developers to complete a certain project (the developer experience) is usually taken into account.
Libraries or frameworks that are exciting and straightforward to use are frequently selected by developers. This is one of the primary reasons why some libraries and frameworks become so famous and extensively utilized by so many developers. As a result, React and Next.js have become two of the most popular front-end web development technologies today, responsible for shaping our online experience as the standard tools used to construct user interfaces.
In this blog post, we will examine these two technologies to understand what they do, their pros and cons, the key differences between them, and then explore their use cases, so you can eventually decide which one to utilize for your projects.
Next.js is a framework created by Vercel (formerly Zeit). It is open-source, built using Node.js and Babel, and connects with React to create single-page apps. This allows you to create static web apps and makes server-side rendering incredibly simple, regardless of where your data comes from.
It is a React framework, which means it works on top of React.js or it makes use of the many popular React library’s capabilities to quickly construct software applications. It has a lot of important features, such as a preview mode, building size optimization, static export, and pre-rendering.
Next.js has two types of pre-rendering to manage how data is fetched for optimal speed, these are:
Server-side Rendering (SSR) enables the retrieval and rendering of data at the time of the request, resulting in clients receiving a completely drawn page on demand rather than having to wait several seconds for individual elements to load.
Static generation uses data that is already available at build time before the request is performed; this is especially useful when data is publicly cached or pre-rendered for SEO purposes.
You can read more on Server-side Rendering (SSR) and Static-site Generation (SSG) here.
Overall, the current version of Next.js is something that React has long lacked, as it is largely focused on integration and performance. It also includes a Rust compiler for quicker builds, improved image management, increased SEO crawlability functions, and operational tools to make it even more production-friendly.
The pros
Next.js apps are fast and give a more logical approach to data management due to Server-side Rendering and Static Generation. Native image optimization features improve performance as well.
Next.js, applications are easy to create. To build pages, for example, simply add the page to the pages folder and the necessary header component link. This simplifies your life since you write less code, and the project is easier to follow, resulting in better project management.
Images are scaled and sent in the best, latest formats, such as WebP, and are tailored to fit into smaller viewports.
Vercel, the startup behind Next.js, wanted to make it as simple as possible to deploy React projects. And they succeeded, which means you're only a few clicks away from being ready for deployment.
One of the reasons Next.js is so popular among developers is that it supports Typescript.
The cons
Next.js routing system is just a file system, which is insufficient for some tasks but not all. Node.js is the technology to have on hand for creating dynamic routes, therefore developers must be familiar with it.
It is modest but expanding by the day as Next.js becomes one of the most popular online building pieces. The skill pool and demand for Next.js developers is growing, which means there are more options for individuals wishing to make a name for themselves in modern application development.
React is a free and open-source JavaScript frontend library for creating user interfaces. Meta (formerly Facebook) and a community of individual developers and organizations manage it. It became open-source in 2013 and is now one of the most used front-end libraries.
According to the 2021 Stack Overflow developer survey, React.js surpassed jQuery as the most frequently used web framework with around 40.14 percent and the most sought, with one in every four developers desiring it. Over, 8000 industry leaders utilize React.
Among the many important capabilities given by React are routing and state management methods with Redux (for enterprise-grade mobile apps) and other libraries/frameworks such as React Native. React Hooks is another React-based utility that is frequently used to handle component behavior and logic.
React includes a range of extensions for overall application architectural support, such as Flux and React Native, in addition to UI. It provides a unique extension that accelerates and simplifies the debugging of React web projects in practically all browsers. Its main rivals are Angular and Vue.js, although according to npm trends, it has been the most popular library of the three in recent years.
The pros
It includes a comprehensive set of manuals, tutorials, and training materials. Any developer with JavaScript skills can quickly grasp and begin creating web apps using React.
You'll need to design your process in React. This is a more difficult road than just utilizing what other JavaScript frameworks provide: a plethora of ready-made capabilities integrated into the framework.
React has also grown in popularity as a result of its useful collection of tools that make the developer's job more straightforward.
The cons
React is a library that specializes in the creation of user interfaces. As a result, you will still need to select other technologies to have a comprehensive set of development tools for your project.
Because its development cycles are so short, the existing documentation is quickly out of date. The robust community responds quickly to any inquiries or concerns, but it also necessitates regular re-learning of its aspects.
It is critical to distinguish between a framework and a library, as we previously stated that Next.js is a React framework (as it calls itself "The React Framework for Production"), and React is a JavaScript library.
Frameworks help get started on projects more quickly, as frameworks provide low-level Frameworks that make it easier to get started on projects faster since they provide low-level functionality, leaving only the high-level functionality of an app to develop. Frameworks give some fundamental code to start developing an application faster and with less effort.
Libraries are collections of resources that developers may utilize to streamline the application development process. Libraries may be quite useful while working on complex projects since they allow you to utilize different applications, even if they are unrelated in any manner.
In general, when you use a library, you control the flow of an application, however, when you use a framework, the flow is controlled by the framework, which is one of the most significant distinctions between a framework and a library. The following is a summary of the differences between Next.js and React:
Next.js
React
You write less code and the project is easy to follow, resulting in better project management.
Coding is fast with the help of Create-React-App (CRA).
Because of Server-side Rendering and Static Generation, Next.js applications are incredibly fast.
Decent, but the lack of code splitting results in poor performance.
Next.js supports static export, pre-rendering and has many more nice features like automatic building size optimization, faster developer compilation, and a preview mode.
React is easily extensible and can include features like routing as well as state management patterns with libraries like Redux.
In terms of SEO, Next.js has increased SEO crawlability functions as applications go through the proper information, such as the meta and headers and, catalog those details.
When a search engine crawls through a React project, it will not get the necessary data it needs, as it will only retrieve a JavaScript file, making it poor in terms of SEO.
Well-written documentation.
Well-written documentation.
Has a smaller community but is very friendly with over 82.1k stars on GitHub.
Has a huge community and is very friendly, with over 183k stars on GitHub.
Very narrow talent pool.
Has a huge talent pool.
Very easy to learn with lots of resources, guides, videos, and courses.
Very easy to learn with lots of resources, guides, videos, and courses.
Next.js is used to create landing pages, SEO-friendly websites, eCommerce businesses, and other web applications that require rapid, high-performance load times. Twitch.tv, TikTok, Hulu, Binance, and many more websites and platforms that involve many people interacting with complicated data influxes are some of the most amazing instances of Next.js in action.
You can check out hundreds of beautiful websites built with Next.js by Vercel here.
Next.js and Hygraph
Hygraph is a GraphQL-based headless CMS that works well with Next.js apps and webpages. All you have to do to get started with Hygraph is to create an account, select a plan and then create a project. This will provide us with an API that we can query with GraphQL. GraphQL is a query language that allows you to get exactly what you want from many resources in a single request.
Querying resources and data using GraphQL is very simple and could look like this:
{
posts{
id,
title
}
}
You can check some querries commands and how they work with GraphQL here.
Hygraph has a robust and versatile administration API for managing your content and schema, as well as a lightning-fast content API. Combine the power of Next.js with a headless CMS for your Progressive Web Software, eCommerce store, or desktop app project.
React is used to build SEO-friendly dynamic webpages, mobile apps, single-page apps, dashboards, and visualization tools. It is used to develop some of the most well-known platforms and services we use every day, like Facebook, Netflix, BBC.com, and Airbnb.
You can check out **hundreds of beautiful websites made with React here.
React and Hygraph
Making use of GraphQL in your React app would need you to first install Apollo Client, this will help you configure Apollo Client and then allow you to retrieve data from graphQL and REST endpoints. To work with React in Hygraph you can make use of the React SDK.
This example shows how to query from Hygraph using graphql-request in React.js. You can also read this tutorial on how to work with React.js and why a React Headless CMS with GraphQL would be the best choice for your next project.
This should not be the issue because there is no conclusive answer as to which is superior, but rather it depends. It all boils down to the type and aims of the project, whether you're operating as a developer or a CTO.
In their ways, both React and Next.js present excellent options for developers. React allows you to construct things exactly as you want them to be and is backed by a large community. Next.js makes your life simpler by providing several tools and standards out of the box, and it is also backed by a thriving open source community. They're simple to get started with and easy to obtain support with, whether through documentation or community resources.
React is a wonderful complement to any project. What's more, if, given the chance, it can scale as well. React is more adaptable than Next.js simply because it is a library. It is up to the engineer to decide whether to implement it.
We hope the contrasts and explanations offered here help you understand how to utilize them in your projects and which one to use based on the project.
Blog Author
Joel Olawanle
Joel Olawanle is a Frontend Engineer and Technical writer based in Nigeria who is interested in making the web accessible to everyone by always looking for ways to give back to the tech community. He has a love for community building and open source.
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