Exploring Next.js Hosting Limitations Beyond Vercel

Project Overview

Technical Exploration for Personal Hobby Projects

Problem

While working on personal projects and keeping up with dev community discussions, I noticed how many of Next.js’s powerful features like dynamic routes, intercepting routes, edge functions, and ISR are tightly coupled with Vercel’s infrastructure. Hosting Next.js apps elsewhere, like on Netlify or custom servers, often requires extra configuration, workarounds, or sacrifices certain features altogether.

My Role

Self-initiated technical research — ran experiments, built test projects, and explored community feedback to better understand these hosting limitations and possible alternatives.

Solution Strategy

• Tested deploying small Next.js projects on Netlify and Render to check how routing, API routes, and SSR functions behave outside Vercel.
• Faced routing errors and limitations in dynamic and catch-all routes when hosted elsewhere.
• Read through community posts, GitHub discussions, and official docs about workarounds — most involved extra configuration or came with trade-offs.
• Explored alternatives like React Router v7 paired with Vite and NestJS for projects where I wanted hosting flexibility without being tied to a specific platform.
• Decided to keep Next.js in my toolbox but only use it when Vercel hosting is acceptable or client requirements explicitly allow it.

Testing & Validation

• Deployed test Next.js projects on Netlify and Render to verify how dynamic routing and API routes responded.
• Compared build logs, deployment errors, and routing behavior between Vercel and other platforms.
• Noted community-reported issues and solutions from GitHub threads and personal dev circles.

Final Result

Confirmed that while Next.js works best on Vercel for full feature support, hosting elsewhere demands compromises or extra setup. Now, depending on project needs and hosting flexibility, I confidently decide between Next.js (on Vercel) or alternatives like React Router v7 and NestJS for my personal and experimental projects.

Tech Stack

Next.js, Vercel, Netlify, Render, React Router v7, NestJS, Vite