The Architectural Shift: Moving Beyond the SPA
For the first year of my SaaS journey, Vite was my best friend. Its hot module replacement (HMR) is lightning fast, the developer experience (DX) is top-tier, and for a Single Page Application (SPA), it’s hard to beat. However, as my user base grew and my marketing needs evolved, I hit a wall that every SPA developer eventually faces: the limitations of client-side rendering (CSR).
In this article, I want to break down why I decided to migrate my entire frontend from Vite to Next.js, the technical hurdles I faced, and how the move actually impacted my bottom line and user satisfaction.
The Three Main Pain Points with Vite (CSR)
While Vite is an incredible build tool, it doesn't solve the inherent issues of the SPA architecture. As my SaaS scaled, three problems became impossible to ignore:
1. The SEO Black Box
Even though Googlebot has improved its ability to crawl JavaScript, it is still slower and less reliable than crawling static HTML. My landing pages, documentation, and public profiles were all being rendered on the client. This meant lower search rankings and zero social media previews (Open Graph tags) without using expensive third-party pre-rendering services.
2. The "White Screen" Effect
In a Vite-based SPA, the browser has to download the entire JavaScript bundle before it can even start rendering the UI. For users on mobile devices or slower connections, this resulted in a 3-4 second white screen. In the SaaS world, every second of latency is a potential customer lost.
3. Waterfall Fetches
My dashboard relied heavily on fetching user data, settings, and team information. Because these calls happened inside useEffect hooks after the component mounted, I was creating "data waterfalls" that made the app feel sluggish, even if the API was fast.
Why Next.js Was the Answer
Next.js offered a hybrid approach that solved these issues while keeping the React ecosystem I loved. By switching, I gained access to:
- Server-Side Rendering (SSR): Generating HTML on every request, ensuring SEO is perfect.
- Static Site Generation (SSG): Pre-rendering marketing pages for instantaneous loads.
- API Routes: Handling sensitive logic (like Stripe webhooks) without needing a separate backend server for everything.
- Image Optimization: Automatic resizing and WebP conversion that saved megabytes of bandwidth.
The Migration Strategy
Moving a production app isn't as simple as changing a dependency in package.json. I had to rethink how data flowed through the application.
Routing Changes
I had to move from react-router-dom to the Next.js File-Based Routing system. This meant moving components from a flat /src/pages directory into the /app (or /pages) structure.
Handling window and document references
In a Vite app, you can use window anywhere. In Next.js, the code runs on the server first, where window doesn't exist. I had to wrap many third-party libraries in useEffect or use dynamic imports with ssr: false to prevent the dreaded "window is not defined" error.
Automation to the Rescue
If you have a large codebase, manual conversion of routes and components can take weeks of tedious work. For developers looking to speed up this transition, you can use tools like ViteToNext.AI to automatically refactor your Vite + React components into Next.js compatible structures, saving hours of manual debugging.
The Results: Real Data
After a month of running Next.js in production, the results were measurable:
- Lighthouse Score: My Performance score jumped from 64 to 92.
- Organic Traffic: We saw a 22% increase in impressions on Google Search Console within three weeks, primarily because our landing pages were now properly indexed.
- User Retention: The First Contentful Paint (FCP) dropped from 2.8s to 0.9s. Users reported that the app felt "native" and more responsive.
Conclusion
Migrating from Vite to Next.js was a strategic decision to prioritize user experience and growth over developer convenience. While Vite remains an excellent choice for internal tools or small experiments, Next.js provides the infrastructure required for a scaling SaaS.
If your app is growing and you’re starting to feel the weight of SEO issues or slow initial loads, it might be time to consider the move. The ecosystem is mature enough now that the transition, while significant, is a solved problem.
Further reading: How to automate your migration from Vite to Next.js
