BasicNext.js Orientation and the App Router Bet45 minLesson 3 of 8
How does the App Router differ from the Pages Router, and what would make you keep an app on Pages?

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Overview
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Objectives
What you'll learn
- State the three differences that actually matter between the routers.
- Explain why the App Router changed the default from client to server.
- Give a defensible reason to leave an app on the Pages Router.
Terms to know
Glossary
- getServerSideProps
- The Pages Router's per-request data function. It ran once per route before render and had no App Router equivalent — you await inside the component instead.
- Reserved filename
- A file whose name gives it meaning to the router: layout, page, loading, error, template, not-found, route, default.
- Incremental migration
- Running app/ and pages/ side by side and moving routes one at a time, which Next.js supports directly.