Authentication and Server Actions in Next.js

You have learned about quite a few Next.js features that make it stand out as the premier web framework, but the list of the most important functionalities wouldn’t be complete without a very brief introduction to Server Actions.

Server Actions are simply asynchronous functions executed only on the server and designed to handle data fetching and mutations (through POST, PUT, and DELETE methods), and they can be called through plain form submissions (the default browser form handling method), but also through event handlers (a React-y approach) or by third-party libraries such as Axios.

The benefits of such an approach are numerous. Performance is improved because the client-side JavaScript is significantly reduced, and since the actions run only on the server, the overall security of the application is enhanced and applications can even run with JavaScript disabled, much like the old-school applications of a couple of decades...