Migrating from Vue.js to Next.js: Lessons from Our RoyaTV Project

At FJ Software Studio, we specialize in modern web technologies and performance optimization. One of our most impactful projects involved migrating the RoyaTV frontend from Vue.js to Next.js. This transition improved performance, SEO, and user experience, aligning with RoyaTV's long-term digital goals.

The Challenge: A Vue.js Frontend with Performance Issues

RoyaTV's original frontend was built using Vue.js and relied heavily on AJAX calls to fetch data dynamically. While this approach provided flexibility, it introduced several challenges:

• SEO Limitations – Search engines struggled to index dynamically loaded content.

• Slow Load Times – Heavy reliance on client-side rendering led to performance bottlenecks.

• Responsiveness Issues – Inconsistent UI behavior across different devices.

• Error Handling Complexity – Handling API failures and unexpected errors was inconsistent, leading to potential UX issues.

2. Our Solution: Moving to Next.js with TypeScript and Server-Side Rendering

To address these challenges, we transitioned the frontend to Next.js, leveraging server-side rendering (SSR) to improve load times and SEO. Key improvements included:

• Enhanced SEO Pre-rendered pages made content easily crawlable by search engines.

• Faster Load Speeds Reduced client-side rendering overhead resulted in a smoother user experience.

• Improved Responsiveness A redesigned frontend ensured a consistent experience across devices.

• TypeScript Implementation We adopted TypeScript for better type safety, reducing runtime errors and improving maintainability.

• Robust Error Handling Implemented centralized error-handling mechanisms, including API retries and fallback UI components for failed requests.

3. Key Lessons from the Migration

If you work remotely, it’s likely you are on a global team and yet all your components have English names. This slows down your non-english colleagues considerably so you should allow them to use their native tongue when naming components.

• Choosing the Right Framework Matters While Vue.js is powerful, Next.js provided better performance and SEO capabilities for RoyaTV's needs.

• Incremental Migration is Effective We migrated sections of the website gradually, minimizing downtime and ensuring a seamless transition.

• Optimizing for Performance Pays Off Careful caching strategies, API optimizations, and efficient rendering techniques significantly reduced load times.

• Strong Type Safety Improves Code Reliability Using TypeScript helped catch potential errors early, making development smoother and reducing debugging time.

• Error Handling Should Be a Priority By implementing structured error handling and user-friendly fallback strategies, we ensured a more resilient and stable application.

The Results: A Faster, More Searchable, and Engaging Platform

Following the migration, RoyaTV experienced:

• A noticeable increase in search engine visibility.

• Improved page load times, leading to higher user retention.

• A modern, scalable architecture that supports future growth.

• Fewer runtime errors and better debugging efficiency due to TypeScript adoption.