OpenNextJS vs. Next.js: A Beginner's Guide to Choosing the Right Platform

The Confusion You've built a Next.js app. It works great on your laptop. Now you need to deploy it. You hear your friends say: "Just use Vercel, it's made for Next.js" "Try Cloudflare, it's way cheaper" "What's OpenNextJS? Is that a fork of Next.js?" If you're confused, you're not alone. Let me untangle this. Here's the truth: Next.js is a framework. Vercel and Cloudflare are platforms. OpenNextJS is a bridge. By the end of this post, you'll understand: What each one is (really) How they differ