Building a personal site with Next.js

Why own a personal site

Beyond social platforms, a personal site is the only space that fully belongs to you: domain, content and design are all yours. It extends your resume and accumulates your work over time.

Choosing the stack

• Next.js (App Router): pages and backend APIs in one process
• Tailwind CSS: build a design system quickly, dark mode included
• Prisma + SQLite: zero-config locally, a single file to back up in production

// The simplest server-side data read
const posts = await prisma.post.findMany({
  where: { published: true },
  orderBy: { publishedAt: 'desc' },
});

Recommended structure

Folder	Responsibility
app/(site)	Public pages
app/admin	Admin panel
app/api	Backend endpoints
lib	Data access, auth, utilities

Going live

PM2 plus an nginx reverse proxy gets you deployed in minutes.

Ship first, iterate later. A rough but real site beats a perfect design that never leaves the draft folder.