Next.js developers
Hire Next.js developers who ship to production
1,700+
A team in Ghent that builds and runs Next.js 16 sites and apps, in your repository or ours.
Built and kept running in Next.js
To hire Next.js developers well, you need people who have shipped Next.js to production and kept it running: through the App Router, static exports, caching, security releases and the next major version. Our client sites run on Next.js, the recent ones on Next.js 16 with React 19, TypeScript and Tailwind, as static exports on AWS in the EU, in Dutch, French, English and Turkish, each page built, checked and deployed by us.
This page tells you what an experienced developer costs in each market, what to test before you hire anyone, what hosting a Next.js site costs, and how working with our team in Ghent runs, so you can compare us with a freelancer or an in-house hire on equal terms.
What an hour of an experienced developer costs, by market
Belgian agencies, mostlyweb development agencies50 to 99
Swedensenior freelancer72 to 118
Denmarksenior freelancer75 to 120
United Kingdomsenior freelancer78 to 125
Netherlandssenior freelancer80 to 125
Germanysenior freelancer85 to 140
United Statessenior freelancer95 to 150
US agenciesweb development agencies100 to 149
dollars per hour
A Belgian agency, with project management and testing included, usually costs less per hour than a senior freelancer on his own in Amsterdam, Berlin or London.
Rates per hour, before VAT, in 2026. A freelancer is one person; an agency rate also covers review, testing and a project lead.
What it costs to hire Next.js developers
The chart shows the market for experienced developers in general; Next.js skills sit at the upper half of those ranges, because the framework moves fast and the App Router asks for people who understand server and client rendering. Three ways to buy that work:
| Option | Typical price signal | What you get | What stays with you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior freelancer in your city | 78 to 140 dollars an hour in the Netherlands, Germany or the UK | one person, fast start | review, testing, holidays, the risk when he leaves |
| In-house hire | a salary plus employer charges, plus months of recruiting | a developer who knows your product deeply | management, a second pair of eyes, career growth |
| Agency in Belgium | about half of web development agencies list 50 to 99 dollars an hour | a team with review, testing and a project lead | product decisions and priorities |
For more detail per market, read our guide to web developer hourly rates. If your project is a website rather than an application, a website from us starts at 1,500 euros for a one-pager, and a site with many pages, languages, bookings or a shop costs 5,000 euros or more, always as a fixed price per part. For an application, we split the scope into modules and price each one after a call. How hiring through an employer of record, a freelancer, an agency team or a fixed-price project compare is in hire developers in Europe.
What a Next.js developer should know in 2026
Next.js 16 came out on 21 October 2025 with Cache Components, stable Turbopack and support for the React Compiler; version 16.4 followed on 6 October 2026. Since July 2026 the Next.js team plans a security release about once a month, with extra out-of-band updates when a flaw is critical, as on 22 September and 14 October 2026. A developer you hire should be comfortable with all of that:
| Skill | Why it matters | How to test it |
|---|---|---|
| App Router and React Server Components | decides what runs on the server and what ships to the browser | ask them to explain one page of your app: what renders where, and why |
| Caching and rendering modes | static, dynamic and cached data decide speed and cost | give a page that must update hourly and ask how they would build it |
| Static export | the cheapest, fastest and safest way to host a content site | ask what breaks when you export statically, and how they handle forms and redirects |
| TypeScript and tests | keeps a codebase changeable after a year | look at a pull request they wrote, not at a portfolio |
| SEO and Core Web Vitals | a fast site that Google cannot read earns nothing | ask how they set titles, canonicals, hreflang and a sitemap per language |
| Upgrades and security releases | the framework ships fixes every month | ask how they updated from 15 to 16 and how long it took |
What hosting a Next.js site costs
| Hosting | Plan | Price | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Pro | 20 dollars per developer seat per month, 1 TB of transfer included | apps that use server rendering and preview deploys per branch |
| Vercel | Hobby | free, personal and non-commercial use only | side projects, not a company site |
| AWS CloudFront plus S3 | Free flat-rate plan | 0 dollars, 1 million requests and 100 GB a month | static exports with modest traffic |
| AWS CloudFront plus S3 | Pro flat-rate plan | 15 dollars a month, 10 million requests and 50 TB | static exports with real traffic |
We host most client sites as static exports on S3 behind CloudFront, in the EU, with our own router and security headers. Fast, cheap and hard to break, because there is no server to attack. Where an application needs a server, we run it on AWS as well. If a site you have today is slow, our website speed test measures it from a European server, and why WordPress is so slow explains the four usual causes.
How we work inside your repository
- Your conventions firstWe read and run your code before writing a line: your linting, your folder structure, your branch rules.
- Checks before reviewType checks, tests and our own gates for links, images and SEO run before a pull request asks for review.
- Deploys you can undoEvery release goes out with a backup and a way back; on our platforms a release switches over in 2 to 6 seconds.
- English in every ticketSpecifications, commits, tickets and calls in English, in your working hours.
Next.js or another stack for your project
| If your project is | A good fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A company site with many pages, languages and SEO | Next.js as a static export | fast, cheap to host, every page readable by Google and AI assistants |
| A site your marketing team edits every day | Next.js with a headless CMS | editors get a friendly editor, developers keep the code clean |
| A web application with logins, dashboards and data | Next.js or React with a separate API | one language from database to screen, typed end to end |
| A small brochure site you want to edit yourself | WordPress, Webflow or Wix | no developer needed for a text change; read whether WordPress is safe first |
| A prototype to test an idea next week | an AI builder | quick, but read where Lovable breaks against WordPress before you build a business on it |
Next.js is not the answer to everything. If nobody on your side will touch code and the site has ten pages, a good WordPress or Webflow build is cheaper to own. Next.js pays back when the site is large, multilingual, fast by requirement, or part of a product.
Hiring across a border: hours, language and law
Belgium shares its clock with Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and Stockholm and is one hour ahead of London, so you get a full working day of overlap. We work in English and Dutch; your code, commits and tickets are in English. Inside the EU we work under the same GDPR as you, with a data processing agreement and hosting in the EU by default. More on the trade-offs in our page on nearshore software development.
How to check a Next.js team before you hire it
- Open their live sites. View the source, run a speed test, and check our SEO checker on a few pages. A Next.js team that ships slow, unreadable pages will ship yours the same way.
- Ask for a pull request, not a pitch. Good teams can show how they review, test and document a change.
- Ask what happens after launch. Who installs the monthly security release, who watches the logs, and how fast can they roll back a bad deploy?
- Ask about languages and SEO. Multilingual sites and international SEO are where most Next.js builds lose traffic.
- Ask who owns what. The repository, the domain, the hosting account and the content should be yours.
How working with our Next.js team runs
We take on Next.js work in two shapes. A project with a scope and a price after a scoping call: a new site, a headless website with a CMS for your editors, a web application or a migration from WordPress or a single-page app. Or a defined piece of work in your own codebase: a migration to the App Router, a performance fix, a set of pages in new languages. We start by reading and running your code, then take a first small ticket to learn your conventions.
| Week | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 | Scoping call, access to the repository, a written plan with an estimate |
| 2 to 3 | First pull requests, reviewed by a second developer, deployed to a preview link |
| Every 2 weeks | Demo, changelog and the next priorities, agreed with you |
| Launch | Deploy with a backup and a way back, after you approve the preview |
| After | Security releases installed, uptime watched, new pages and features on request |
The risks of hiring Next.js developers, and how we cover them
The usual risks are the same as with any nearshore team: slow answers, code only one person understands, and an estimate that runs out. We answer in your working hours, every change is reviewed by a second developer, the code lives in a repository you own, and we estimate per module so you see early where the budget goes.
Before you sign: four questions we hear most
Can you join an existing Next.js codebase?
Yes. We start by reading the code and running it locally, then take a first small ticket to learn your conventions: your linting, your folder structure, your branch rules. Type checks and tests run before a pull request asks for review.
App Router or Pages Router?
Our recent sites use the App Router. We work in either, and we can plan a migration in steps, page by page, so your site never stops working. A migration is also the moment to fix what slowed the old site down.
Do we need Vercel?
No. Vercel is a good host for server-rendered apps and preview deploys, but a static export runs on any CDN. Most of our sites run on AWS in the EU, which keeps data and invoices with one provider many companies already use.
What do you need from us to start?
Access to the repository or a description of what you want built, a person who can decide on priorities each week, and the accounts for domain and hosting, or our help to set them up in your name.
Web application
How VBS builds with Next.js for you
We build company sites, webshops, client portals and web applications in Next.js, and take on defined work in your own codebase. Every change is reviewed by a second developer, deployed to a preview link and shipped with a way back. For Business Centrum, a payroll office in Ghent, we built a Next.js site in four languages that went from 220 to 10,200 Google impressions a day in five weeks; for SN Group, a builder, a site with two calculators visitors use to price their project. Book a call and tell us what you want built or fixed.
Need Next.js developers for a project?
Tell us what you want to build or fix. We reply with how we would start and what the first phase costs.
Rather get in touch right away?