Building Fast and Scalable Headless Drupal Nextjs Applications

Building a headless Drupal Next.js application requires careful planning and execution. This approach allows for a decoupled architecture, where the frontend and backend are separate, enabling flexibility and scalability.

To create a fast and scalable headless Drupal Next.js application, you can use the Next.js API routes feature, which allows you to create server-side rendered pages. This can be particularly useful for handling complex data fetching and processing.

By leveraging the strengths of both Drupal and Next.js, you can build a robust and performant application that meets the demands of modern web development. With proper configuration and implementation, you can achieve high performance and scalability.

Next.js provides several features that can help improve the performance of your application, including automatic code splitting and server-side rendering.

A fresh viewpoint: Nextjs Performance

Headless Drupal is a powerful approach to web development that allows you to serve Drupal and NextJS within a single environment using DDEV.

You can develop headless sites using the NextJS for Drupal library from Chapter Three, which provides a way to use Layout Builder in a decoupled way. This means your site builders and content authors can do all the content and administration from Drupal, and control the output from end-to-end on a headless site.

JSON:API is included in Drupal core and provides a flexible framework for exposing content and configuration as structured JSON, making it advantageous for headless websites where Drupal is a backend that powers a separate frontend like NextJS.

To get started with headless Drupal, you can use the Next-drupal-starterkit initiative, which offers a one-command setup for efficient decoupled site projects. This initiative was first introduced by Mario and Joshua at DrupalCon Lille 2023.

If you need help with setting up headless Drupal, you can contact a Triple Certified Drupal Expert, like Velir, who can guide you through the process.

Here are some key features of headless Drupal:

By using headless Drupal, you can take advantage of Drupal's powerful content management system and NextJS's server-side rendering capabilities to build fast and scalable web applications.

Building a headless site with Drupal and Next.js is a powerful combination. You can serve both Drupal and Next.js within DDEV, a tool for development and testing.

To develop headless sites, you can use the NextJS for Drupal library from Chapter Three. This library allows you to use Layout Builder in a headless, decoupled way, giving your site builders and content authors control over the output.

Drupal's JSON:API provides a flexible framework for exposing content and configuration as structured JSON, making it advantageous for headless websites.

To get started, you can set up your Drupal commerce site and Next.js site, then fetch data from the Drupal site to create pages dynamically. Here's a step-by-step guide to get you started:

You can also leverage the power of Layout Builder in a headless, decoupled way, allowing your site builders and content authors to control the output from end-to-end.

If you need help with these methods, consider contacting a Triple Certified Drupal Expert or a Drupal team, like Velir, for assistance. They can guide you through the process and help you take advantage of Drupal for your headless website.

We connected Next.js for Drupal hosted on Netlify to our Drupal application, making it easy for frontend developers to jump in and construct a Next.js site quickly while pulling data and assets from Drupal.

The Next.js module comes with a plugin layer for revalidating content on the Next.js headless site, keeping things relatively synced whenever individual content is created or updated.

Sometimes, we need to regenerate the entire site due to global changes that touch every page, which is where the Netlify module comes in to handle this process automatically.

We added a way for site editors to regenerate the headless sites on-demand if something isn’t correct, making it easier to catch and fix any issues.

The Netlify module now handles caching and on-demand rebuilds automatically, making it easier to manage and maintain our headless Next.js site.

By combining the best of Drupal for CMS capabilities with the headless nature of a Next.js website, we've created a powerful and flexible solution for our content needs.

See what others are reading: Netlify Nextjs