Next.js + ES Modules

Starting with Next.js 12, we have built-in support for ES Modules. ES Modules bring an official, standardized module system to JavaScript. They're supported by all major browsers as well as Node.js.

URL Imports

Next.js 12 also includes experimental support for importing ES Modules through URLs – no install or separate build step required.

The Markdown content on this page is retrieved from GitHub using fetch in getStaticProps. Then, it uses Marked to parse and transform Markdown to HTML, while syntax highlighting with highlight.js.

// pages/index.js

import marked from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/marked';
import hljs from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/highlight.js';

export async function getStaticProps() {
  const rawContent = await fetch(
    'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leerob/esm/main/README.md'
  );
  const markdown = await rawContent.text();

  marked.setOptions({
    highlight: function (code, language) {
      return hljs.highlight(code, { language }).value;
    },
  });

  return {
    props: {
      content: marked(markdown),
    },
  };
}

The HTML content is then returned to the default export React component in the file.

We can also use HTTP imports on the client. For example, we can show confetti when the page loads.

// pages/index.js

import { useEffect } from 'react';
import Head from 'next/head';
import confetti from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/canvas-confetti';

export default function Home({ content }) {
  useEffect(() => {
    confetti();
  }, []);

  return (
    <>
      <Head>
        <title>Next.js + ESM URL Imports</title>
        <meta name="description" content="Imports packages from any URL." />
        <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
      </Head>
      <main dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: content }} />
    </>
  );
}

URL imports allow you to use any package directly through a URL. This enables Next.js to process remote HTTP(S) resources exactly like local dependencies.

If a URL import is detected, Next.js will generate a next.lock file to track remote resources. URL imports are cached locally to ensure you can still work offline. Next.js supports both client and server URL imports.

To opt-in, add the allowed URL prefixes inside next.config.js:

module.exports = {
  experimental: {
    urlImports: ['https://cdn.skypack.dev'],
  },
};

Then, you can import modules directly from URLs:

import confetti from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/canvas-confetti';

Any CDN that serves ES modules will work, including:

You can also import ES Modules from tools like Framer:

import { useFriendData } from 'https://framer.com/m/framer/framer-motion.js';

export default function Friends(props) {
  const friends = useFriendData();

  return (
    <div>
      {friends.map((friend) => (
        <div>{friend.name}</div>
      ))}
    </div>
  );
}

Deploy on Vercel

Start using ESM with Next.js by deploying to Vercel.

For more information, watch our demo from Next.js Conf and check out the documentation.