Choosing the Stack: Next.js, React Native—When It Pays Off

Tech stack is about ROI, not fashion. Early on you need speed to market, low total cost of ownership, and the ability to scale without rewrites. Here’s when to pick Next.js for the web and when React Native pays off for mobile, how to model costs, and what risks to manage.

Key decision drivers

• Growth channels: SEO/content, paid, referrals, app stores.
• Platform coverage: web only / web+mobile / mobile-first.
• UX complexity & performance: animations, lists, graphics, offline.
• Integrations & security: payments, CRM, PII/compliance.
• Team & hiring: talent availability and skills.
• TCO: support, upgrades, releases, DevOps overhead.

When Next.js is the right choice

• You need SEO and fast content: SSR/SSG/ISR, edge caching, sitemaps/hreflang.
• Hybrid site: marketing pages + app (dashboards/account) in one codebase.
• Headless CMS/e-commerce: routing, API handlers, image optimization out of the box.
• Internationalization: built-in i18n routing.
• Performance by default: static output, code-splitting, dynamic imports.

When React Native pays off

• You ship iOS and Android at once: one team instead of two native teams.
• Time-to-market beats perfect nativeness: RN covers 80–90% of use cases.
• Mid-complexity UI: lists/forms/offline/push/deeplinks without heavy 3D/AR/video editing.
• Reuse logic/UI across web and mobile (validators, models, design tokens).
• Fast iterations: EAS/Fastlane, OTA updates (with store caveats).

When native or alternatives fit better

• High-end graphics/AR/gaming, deep sensors, heavy real-time — go native.
• Long background tasks, complex Bluetooth — verify library support.
• Very simple mobile presence — start with a PWA and measure.

Architecture & reuse

• Monorepo (pnpm/turbo): shared `ui`, `tokens`, `api`, `validators` across Next.js and RN.
• Design system: Storybook, shared components where sensible; tokens for type/spacing.
• API contracts via tRPC/GraphQL/REST with generated types.
• Mobile: Expo for speed or bare RN if you need many native modules.

Cost & payback: simple model

“TCO_native ≈ 2 × (dev + QA + releases) + duplicated features”

“TCO_RN ≈ 1.3–1.6 × (dev + QA + releases) + native modules”

Numeric example: two native teams at $20k each = $40k/mo. RN team at $28k/mo + $3k for native modules & CI = $31k. ~ $9k/mo saved. If time-to-market is equal or faster on RN, the break-even vs native arrives within ~2–3 months.

Risks & controls

• Dependencies/upgrades: quarterly upgrade windows, e2e regression.
• Performance: list virtualization, Hermes, selective Reanimated.
• Native bridges: keep them minimal and isolated as packages.
• For Next.js: CWV budgets, dynamic imports, third-party script audits.
• Store compliance: privacy/consent, tracking, review checklist.

CI/CD & quality

• Web: Vercel/Netlify + GitHub Actions; PR previews; Lighthouse budgets.
• Mobile: Expo EAS or Fastlane + beta tracks (TestFlight/Internal).
• Feature flags to ship safely without hard releases.
• Monitoring: Sentry, perf events (web-vitals, slow-render, long-task).

Content, SEO & stores

• Next.js: unique titles/descriptions, schema.org, hreflang, sitemap, clean URLs.
• RN: ASO — icon/screens/video, keywords, locales, review replies.

Fast decision checklist

1. Need SEO pages and a web app? — Next.js.
2. Need iOS+Android with one team? — React Native (validate risks).
3. Need AR/heavy media/real-time? — consider native.
4. Thin mobile hypothesis? — start with a PWA and measure.
5. Model TCO for 12 months, not just v1 cost.
6. Bake in processes: CI/CD, upgrades, perf budgets, feature flags.

Wrap-up

Next.js and React Native let you cover web and mobile with one ecosystem. Choose based on growth channels and TCO: Next.js for SEO-driven web conversion; RN for fast iOS+Android. The hybrid path is common — and often the fastest to pay back.