Switched to Next.js from Gatsby.JS for the extra flexibility

This was a long path for me. I started with Django and then realized I wanted to make something realtime. So I needed to learn some Javascipt frameworks. I did a bunch of tutorials and ended up working with create-react-app. I was really happy with the result, but didn't have a good way to bolt on a Blog. So then I looked into Gatsby; I loved it ... but I couldn't bolt on my App.

I started playing around with getting the App to work with Gatsby but it was proving to be difficult. Gatsby uses Socket.IO underneath and it was complicating things. So I decided to look into other approaches ... more tutorials. And then, Next.js :)

The Next.js tutorial had be set up another Blog using markdown files (just like Gatsby) which was great, but most importantly it could handle my App with no problems at all. I ended up having to learn more about SSR, but that's probably a good thing.