Chapter 8: Using a Custom Server
Next.js is an incredibly powerful framework. In the first seven chapters of this book, we've been able to create some nice server-side rendered web applications without really caring about tweaking and customizing the web server. Of course, there are few chances for us to discuss implementing a Next.js application inside an Express.js or Fastify server in a real-life scenario, but knowing how to do so is likely to be handy on many occasions.
Talking for myself, in the past years, I've created dozens of large-scale web applications using Next.js, and I rarely needed to use a custom server. However, in some cases, it is inevitable.
We will look at the following topics in detail:
- What using a "custom server" means, when we might need to use it, and what are the options.
- How to use Express.js and Next.js together
- How to use Fastify and Next.js together
- What are the requirements for deploying a custom server...