Gatsby vs Next.js – Full Comparison

At JAMStack.org, Next.js is #1, Hugo is #2, and Gatsby is #3 (sorted by Github stars).

All the static site generators have their own advantages and disadvantages. It can’t be judged just by the number of Github stars.

Here’s a full comparison of Gatsby and Next.js in a nice tabular format.

Gatsby vs Next.js

Excellent: Fully available
Good: Partially available
Fair: Limited
Poor: Not possible

Performance Comparison

Category	Gatsby	Next.js
Static content	Excellent	Excellent
AMP support	Good	Good
Progressive image loading	Excellent	Good
Responsive image loading	Excellent	Good
Inlines critical CSS	Excellent	Excellent
Fontself-hosting	Excellent	Excellent
Offline access	Excellent	Excellent
Prefetching of linked pages	Excellent	Excellent
Page caching	Excellent	Excellent
No extraneous code fetching	Excellent	Excellent

Developer Experience

Category	Gatsby	Next.js
Serverless features	Excellent	Excellent
Preview on refresh or withlink	Excellent	Excellent
Hot reloading of content	Excellent	Excellent
Hot reloading of code	Excellent	Excellent
Componentization	Excellent	Excellent
One-way data binding	Excellent	Excellent
Declarative data queries	Excellent	Excellent
Declarative UI building	Excellent	Excellent
Asset pipelines	Excellent	Excellent
CSS Extensions (e.g. Sass)	Excellent	Excellent
Modern JavaScript syntax	Excellent	Excellent

Governance

Category	Gatsby	Next.js
XSS protection	Excellent	Excellent
Access control (CORS)	Excellent	Excellent
Environment variables	Excellent	Excellent
User authentication	Good	Good
Programmatic design	Good	Good
Design systems	Good	Good
Component libraries	Good	Good

Accessibility Comparison

Category	Gatsby	Next.js
Progressive enhancement	Excellent	Excellent
Landmark elements	Good	Good
Semantic HTML	Good	Good
Accessible routing	Excellent	Fair
Accessibility statement	Excellent	Poor
WCAG 2.0 AA compliance	Good	Fair

Documentation

Category	Gatsby	Next.js
Introductory tutorial	Excellent	Excellent
Sourcing data	Excellent	Fair
Incorporating CSS libraries	Excellent	Excellent
Routing	Excellent	Excellent
Testing	Excellent	Fair
Debugging	Excellent	Fair
Performance	Excellent	Fair
Adding media assets	Excellent	Good
Adding search	Excellent	Fair
Adding analytics	Excellent	Fair
Adding authentication	Excellent	Fair
Adding SEO	Excellent	Fair

All these data has been taken from Gatsby official website.

That’s it.