Routing is a fundamental part of building web applications — it dictates how users navigate through your app and how different pieces of content are accessed. While React (with React Router) and Next.js both offer routing capabilities, there's a stark difference in how they handle dynamic routing — one of the many reasons developers prefer Next.js for production-grade applications.

In this blog, I’ll walk you through how dynamic routing works in Next.js, how it compares to React Router, and why I personally consider it a strong reason to pick Next.js for serious frontend projects.

What is Dynamic Routing?

Dynamic routing is refers to a system where routes are not predefined but are created and managed dynamically based on various factors like user-input, database data, changing ids or other dynamic factors.

Imagine you are building an E-commerce website where you want that every item opened must be shown in a seperate route which is decided according to the id of that post in the database. To do this, we cannot sit and create maybe 1000s of routes for each product. Obviously, we won’t be doing do. This is where dynamic routing comes to play.

Let’s now understand how dynamic routing is handles in Nextjs.

Dynamic Routing in Nextjs

Nextjs uses file-based routing, means every folder inside app/ directory automatically becomes a route. Unlike in Reactjs, where we need to create the routes using React Router Dom.

A dynamic route or segment is created in nextjs by wrapping a file or folder name in square brackets: [segmentName]. For example, [id] or [slug]. For example in an E-commerce website, inside the folder app/(main)/product/[slug].js , where [slug] is the dynamic segment.

Apart from this, Nextjs also includes Catch-all Segments and Optional Catch-all Segments.

Catch-all and Optional Catch-all Segments

Dynamic Segments can be extended to catch-all subsequent segments by adding an ellipsis inside the brackets [...segmentName].

For example, pages/shop/[...slug].js will match /shop/clothes, but also /shop/clothes/tops, /shop/clothes/tops/t-shirts, and so on.

Catch-all Segments can be made optional by including the parameter in double square brackets: [[...segmentName]].

For example, pages/shop/[[...slug]].js will also match /shop, in addition to /shop/clothes, /shop/clothes/tops, /shop/clothes/tops/t-shirts.

Dynamic routing in React

Now let’s compare that with React Router, the standard routing library for React.

Here’s how you define a dynamic route:

<Route path="/blog/:slug" element={<BlogPost />} />

And extract the parameter:

import { useParams } from 'react-router-dom';

function BlogPost() {
  const { slug } = useParams();
  return <h1>Post: {slug}</h1>;
}

🔹 Catch-All in React Router

React Router uses wildcards:

<Route path="/docs/*" element={<Docs />} />

But parsing those segments (like ["setup", "linux"]) is up to you — it's not handled automatically like Next.js’s [...slug].

Differences between Nextjs and React dynamic routing

In React Router, routing is manual and requires explicitly defining routes using configuration, whereas in Next.js, routing is automatic and file-based — every file in the pages/ directory becomes a route. React Router handles dynamic routes using patterns like /blog/:slug, while Next.js uses dynamic file names like pages/blog/[slug].js. For catch-all routes, React Router uses a wildcard (/docs/*), but Next.js provides [...slug].js for multi-level routing. When it comes to optional catch-all routes, React Router requires custom logic to handle them, while Next.js supports it out of the box using [[...slug]].js.

Server-side rendering is not available in React Router by default, as it focuses on client-side routing. In contrast, Next.js has built-in support for server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG), which also makes it more SEO-friendly right out of the box. React relies on useEffect for client-only data fetching, whereas Next.js offers powerful server-side data fetching methods like getStaticProps and getServerSideProps. Lastly, React Router does not have built-in middleware support, while Next.js provides middleware capabilities for handling things like authentication, redirects, and more at the edge.

After building projects using both React and Nextjs, here is why I think nextjs Routing is better.

Nextjs demands literally zero configuration. Just make a folder and you have your route ready.
Dynamic routes in Next.js can be combined with server-side rendering or static generation. In React, you’d need Next.js or a similar framework to get that.
Overall a better developer experience is provided by Nextjs. Managing optional paths, 404s, nested dynamic routes — all feel more natural in Next.js.
For real-world apps where SEO and performance matter, Next.js dynamic routes integrate beautifully with performance optimizations like caching and ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration).

Conclusion

Dynamic routing in Next.js is not just a feature — it's a developer-first design philosophy. It's powerful, minimal, and scales well for apps that go from simple blogs to enterprise-grade dashboards. While React Router gives more flexibility and is great for SPAs, Next.js makes full-stack app development smoother — and dynamic routing is a core reason why I choose it for most of my frontend projects today.

Why Next.js Wins at Dynamic Routing