head to head · open source
next.js vs nextra
next.js has 142,343 GitHub stars, 32,220 forks, 3,358 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nextra has 13,922 stars, 1,415 forks, 346 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. next.js leads on adoption by 922% (142,343 vs 13,922 stars). next.js is written in JavaScript under MIT; nextra is written in TypeScript under MIT. next.js has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, nextra 10%. next.js was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (nextjs, react, static-site-generator), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| next.js | nextra | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 142K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 32K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick next.js if
- You weight community size — 142K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nextra if
- You want the nextra feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nextra fits your workflow better
About next.js
Next.js is a JavaScript framework for building web applications, distributed under the MIT license and described by its maintainers as "The React Framework." It extends the latest React features so that developers can build full stack web applications, and it integrates Rust based JavaScript tooling to produce fast builds. The project lives in the React and Node ecosystem, and its topic list places it among static site generators, server rendering tools, hybrid and universal rendering approaches, and compiler oriented front end tooling. The repository is ten years old and has been pushed as recently as September …
read the full next.js overview →
About nextra
Nextra is a simple, powerful and flexible site generation framework, built on Next.js and written in TypeScript, for developers and teams who want to author documentation or content sites in Markdown and MDX inside a React application.
read the full nextra overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is next.js or nextra more popular?
next.js has 142,343 GitHub stars and nextra has 13,922. next.js has the larger community by that measure.
Are next.js and nextra free?
Both are open source. next.js is licensed under MIT and nextra under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between next.js and nextra?
next.js is written in JavaScript and nextra in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, next.js or nextra?
Choose next.js if you want the larger community (142,343 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nextra if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.