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Migrating From Vercel

A guide to migrating your Next.js app from Vercel to SST.

Why use SST instead of Vercel​

There are a couple of reasons why you might want to migrate your Next.js app from Vercel to SST. Since SST uses OpenNext to deploy to your AWS account:

  • It seamlessly integrates with your other AWS resources. This means that you can easily add other features to your Next.js app; like queues, databases, file uploads, or cron jobs.
  • You also get more control over your infrastructure and the ability to customize it.
  • Your data will never leave your AWS account.
  • Finally, AWS is also a far cheaper option than Vercel. This is especially true for high traffic sites.

Add SST to your Next.js app​

Let's assume your Next.js app looks something like this:

my-nextjs-app/
├── pages/
│   ├── index.ts
│   └── about.ts
├── next.config.js
└── package.json

Simply run the following in your package root.

npx create-sst@latest

This will detect that it's running in a Next.js app and will add a sst.config.ts to the root.

my-nextjs-app/
├── pages/
│   ├── index.ts
│   └── about.ts
├── sst.config.ts
├── next.config.js
└── package.json

The sst.config.ts, initializes this as an SST app and adds Next.js to it.

sst.config.ts
const site = new NextjsSite(stack, "site");

It'll also add the following packages to your package.json — sst, aws-cdk-lib, and constructs. And changes your Next.js dev script.

package.json
- "dev": "next dev",
+ "dev": "sst bind next dev",

This allows your Next.js app to connect to AWS when it runs locally.

Start the local environment​

Now to start your local environment, start SST.

npx sst dev

Then start Next.js in another terminal.

npm run dev

Deploy your Next.js app to AWS​

With SST initialized in your Next.js app, you can deploy it to prod by running:

npx sst deploy --stage prod

This will deploy your app to your AWS account using your local AWS credentials. Once deployed, you'll get an auto-generated URL that looks like — https://d3j4c16hczgtjw.cloudfront.net.

At this point your app is deployed using both Vercel and SST. You can check and make sure that it's working properly before moving ahead.

Migrate your custom domain​

Next you might want to migrate your custom domain. If you have it on Vercel, you'll first need to transfer it out of Vercel. Then you can migrate it to Route 53.

And add it to your sst.config.ts.

sst.config.ts
const site = new NextjsSite(stack, "site", {
  customDomain: "my-nextjs-app.com",
});

Configure preview environments​

The SST CLI supports deploying to multiple stages (or environments). Simply pass in a stage name when you deploy your app.

# Deploy to staging
npx sst deploy --stage staging
# Deploy to prod
npx sst deploy --stage prod
# Deploy a PR stage
npx sst deploy --stage pr123

You can configure this with GitHub Actions. Alternatively, you can use SEED — a service built by the SST team. You can connect your Git repo and it'll deploy your SST app when you git push. It also supports preview environments out of the box.

Now that you've migrated your Next.js app to SST, you might want to add other backend features to it, or connect it to your other AWS resources. Head over here to get started.