Vercel, the well-funded company behind the popular Next.js React framework, today announced the launch of Next.js 12 during a keynote at its annual conference.
While Next.js, by default, mostly focuses on helping developers build static sites, Next.js 12 introduces what Vercel calls ‘middleware’ that makes it easier for developers to provide users with personalized content. Next.js 12, which Vercel likes to call “the SDK for the Web,” also introduces support for ES modules and URL imports, instant HMR and builds, and significant workflow and collaboration innovations.
“Jamstack and static sites became popular because they were empowering front-end developers to push to the edge,” Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch said. “But over the years, we started noticing that developers and consumers loved the speed of pre-rendered artifacts at the edge. But they didn’t love the constraints of static worklo …
