Next.js 16.2 + Turbopack: What Actually Changed (Beyond the Benchmarks)

Next.js 16.2 dropped in March with a bold claim: next dev is 400–900% faster. Turbopack is now the default bundler. Server Components get hot reload. But the number isn't the interesting part. The boring answer: yes, it's faster The Vercel benchmarks are real. On projects with 40+ components, cold starts that used to take 7–9s now land around 1–2s. Not magic — Turbopack eliminates Webpack's overhead on module graph analysis. Project size 15.x cold start 16.2 cold start Gain Small (~15 components