Why I Built an Automated Vite to Next.js Migration Tool (And How You Can Use It for Free)



This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Digital dev

I’ve been working a lot lately with React projects powered by Vite. It’s fast, lightweight, developer-friendly… honestly, I love it.

But then comes the moment when you (or your client) say:

“We need SSR. We need SEO. We need to scale.”

And the answer is always:

“Let’s move to Next.js.”

Which sounds good in theory — until you actually start manually migrating a full React + Vite project to Next.js.

That’s when the pain begins.

What makes the migration so hard?

I had to migrate one of my client projects to Next.js recently. Here’s what I ran into:

  • react-router had to be replaced by App Router
  • File structure needed to be reworked (/pages or /app)
  • Hooks like useNavigate, useLocation didn’t translate directly
  • SSR & SSG had to be carefully handled
  • It was risky, time-consuming, and… honestly, a bit annoying

So I asked myself: Why isn’t this automated yet?

So I built ViteToNext.AI

I decided to build a tool that would do all of that for me.

Here’s what it does:

Scans a Vite + React project

Detects routes, components, APIs

Generates a clean, structured Next.js project (App Router, SSR, etc.)

Allows preview of the transformed code

Enables export as .zip or push to GitHub

All from a simple UI — no config required.

You can try it live: https://vitetonext.codebypaki.online

How it works – Quick example

Before:

// React + Vite
<Routes>
  <Route path="/about" element={<About />} />
</Routes>

After:

// Next.js (App Router)
export default function AboutPage() {
  return <div>About</div>
}

// saved in /app/about/page.tsx

It also takes care of:

Adding “use client” where needed

Keeping component logic intact

Migrating layouts and shared components

Generating a valid app/ or pages/ structure

🧪 Try it free
You can try the full experience here:
👉 https://vitetonext.codebypaki.online

There’s a Free plan (up to 10 routes / 65 components)
And a Pro / Agency plan for unlimited projects and GitHub export.

🙌 I built it for devs like me (and you)
This wasn’t made by a startup. It’s something I built as a developer, for developers, because I needed it myself.

So if you:

Are thinking of migrating to Next.js

Work on client projects that still use Vite

Want to modernize your stack painlessly

This tool might save you hours (or days).

💬 Your feedback is gold
I’m actively improving the tool based on community feedback.
So if you try it, I’d love to hear:

What worked?

What could be improved?

What edge cases should I support?

Feel free to DM, email or leave a comment.

TL;DR
Migrating from Vite + React to Next.js is hard

I built ViteToNext.AI to automate it

You can use it for free right now

I’d love your feedback to make it even better

Thanks for reading 🙏
— @vitetonext

react #vite #nextjs #javascript #webdev #tooling #showdev


This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Digital dev