Can I use one NextJs api for web and mobile apps?

user_15295297 0
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I want to create web app in Nextjs and in the future mobile app in React Native. But I am confused what api to use. Do you think that the Nextjs api can handle both web and mobile apps? Is this possible and is it good idea at all? Should I use PHP backend for that? Thank you very much.

react-native next.js mobile-application api web-applications
2 Answers

With the assumption that you are talking about API Routes :

I would ask you that you think through the scale of your web and app. If this is a simple web/app that you do not expect to grow much - The NextJS API which is similar to standing up an nodejs express server is not a bad option.

Remember a few considerations when designing this API

  1. You may have to distinguish the request origin (web/app)
  2. CORS may have to be customized - Next exposes this
  3. You could set an app specific route to ensure isolation or use headers to distinguish behavior if your application bifurcates in the future.

These concerns are shared even if you made a PHP, ExpresJS or any other API middleware.

Once you are past all this, i would ask you to consider

  1. Using a GraphQL server like Apollo that works nicely with Next and is custom built for this purpose..
  2. Evaluating API Gateways for security and scale.
user_137499570

You don't use any external tools at all.

  1. Next JS has serverless model. So, you don't need to mess with BE.
  2. You can create a number of API routes you want. in /pages/api folder. You can even split like /pages/api/desktop and /pages/api/mobile folders.
  3. You connect your database (MongDB, sql etc) via /middleware/your_file.js. Here is example for MongoDB
  4. If you like, you can even add some security (ex: Auth0, next-auth etc) to secure your API routes created in /pages/api folder. Example for Auth0

After, you can access you data througth API calls. Very good!

user_82801120
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