Why I Rebuilt My Portfolio with Next.js

Hi, this is Wp Hridoy. I'm a Full-Stack Web Developer and WordPress Expert from Bangladesh with 6+ years of experience, and a Top Rated Plus freelancer on Upwork.

I build most of my client sites with WordPress, Elementor and WooCommerce. My own portfolio was on WordPress too, since the first day I put it online. It worked fine. But I kept opening my site and thinking, this should be faster than this.

So I rebuilt the whole thing with Next.js. Here is why, and what I got out of it.

What Was Wrong With My Old Site

Nothing was broken. It was just heavy for what it is:

• Every page was loading plugin CSS and JS that I was not using
• On mobile data the homepage took around 3 to 4 seconds
• For a small design change I had to fight the theme instead of just writing the code
• Plugin and PHP updates every other week, on a site with around ten pages

For a client site or a store, that is a fair trade. The client gets a dashboard and can update everything himself. But my portfolio is only mine. I am the only one who edits it. So I was paying that cost for nothing.

Why I Chose Next.js

I already work with React on my MERN projects, so Next.js was the easy choice for me. Four things made the decision:

1. Static pages — the pages are built before anyone visits, so the server just sends ready HTML
2. Server Components — most of the site sends almost no JavaScript to the browser
3. Image optimization — WebP, correct size and lazy loading, without any plugin
4. Metadata API — title, description, Open Graph and sitemap all in the code, no SEO plugin needed

Now the site loads in under a second and scores 100 on Lighthouse for performance and SEO.

That speed is not only for looks. Core Web Vitals is a ranking factor, and a fast site keeps people on the page. This is the same thing I do for clients, so it made sense to do it properly on my own site first.

What I Used

• Next.js with the App Router
• Tailwind CSS for the design
• Framer Motion for the animations
• MDX for this blog

export default function Home() {
  return <Hero />;
}

The blog posts are just files inside the project. I write the post, push it to GitHub, and Vercel puts it live in about a minute. No login, no editor, no update notice waiting for me.

So Am I Leaving WordPress? No

WordPress is still what I build for most of my clients, and I still take that work every week. If you need to add products, write posts or run a shop yourself, a dashboard is much better for you than pushing code to GitHub. Nobody should learn Git just to change a phone number on their website.

My portfolio was a different case. A few pages, one person editing it, and speed and SEO matter the most. For that, Next.js was the right tool.

What I Would Tell You

Do not rebuild your site just because a new framework is popular. First look at who will edit the site, and how often.

• Client updates the content himself, or it is a shop → stay on WordPress
• Only you edit it, and the pages rarely change → a Next.js build will be faster and cheaper to maintain

I do both, so I have no reason to push you to one side.

If you are confused about which one fits your project, just knock me on WhatsApp or send me a message from the contact page and tell me what you are building. InshaAllah I will give you an honest answer, even if the answer is the one I would not build.