In terms of identity management, NextAuth provides a middle ground, in which we as developers can retain some level of configuration compared to a high-level service like Clerk. With NextAuth, we can integrate with various identity providers and customize the authentication flow to meet our specific needs, such as role-based access control and multi-factor authentication. This flexibility is imperative for an HCM application, where different user roles have varying levels of access and permissions. I also considered using OAuth 2, JOSE, and bcrypt to enhance security measures but felt as though the setup would be cumbersome starting out.

Next.js has become incredibly powerful for full-stack development and has become a framework that I thoroughly enjoy working with. As the team lead, it’s important that the technology we use is something that I am familiar with so that I can help my teammates overcome challenges along the way. Next.js has also become performant through server-side rendering, which reduces client-side bundle sizes significantly. Some may point to viral benchmarking comparisons to similar frameworks in which next is slower in certain niche scenarios, but I believe the overall benefits of using Next.js outweigh the potential performance dips in specific cases. After all, the comparisons provided are measured at the nanosecond level. Additionally, Next.js offers static site generation (SSG) and incremental static regeneration (ISR), which further enhances performance and scalability for our application.