
Next isn't React.
Yes, this is correct. Next.js and React are different things. But from the grand scheme of things, these two are more similar than they are different. Next.js is a React meta-framework which means it's built on top of React. It's not a replacement for React. It's a framework that makes it easier to build React applications. So instead of saying "Next isn't React", we should say "Next isn't just React". It is all that is React plus additional features and optimizations.
And you won't get better performance if you use it the way you use React.
React was used to build client-side rendered (CSR) applications or single-page applications (SPA). I say "was" because the React team no longer recommends this anymore and they recommend using a framework instead (Next.js in this case). The reason for this is that CSR applications are slow to l