I'm building a Next.js app. how do I avoid building email infrastructure?

If you want to avoid building email infrastructure in a Next.js app, the usual move is: use a managed email service instead of running your own SMTP server.

What to use

Common options:

• Resend — very popular for Next.js / React apps, simple API, good developer experience
• Postmark — great for transactional email
• SendGrid — mature, lots of features
• Mailgun — flexible, more infrastructure-y
• AWS SES — cheap and reliable, but more setup
• Brevo / Mailchimp / ConvertKit — better if you also want marketing email

Typical setup

For most Next.js apps:

1. Pick an email provider
2. Verify your sending domain
   Add DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and sometimes DMARC
3. Send email via API from your app or server actions
4. Use templates provided by the service or render your own HTML
5. Track delivery/bounces with webhooks if needed

Best fit for Next.js

If you want the fastest path, I’d usually recommend:

Option A: Resend

• Simple API
• Works well with React components for email templates
• Easy to integrate in Next.js route handlers or server actions

Example:

// app/api/send/route.ts
import { Resend } from "resend";

const resend = new Resend(process.env.RESEND_API_KEY!);

export async function POST() {
  const data = await resend.emails.send({
    from: "Your App <hello@yourdomain.com>",
    to: ["user@example.com"],
    subject: "Welcome!",
    html: "<p>Thanks for signing up.</p>",
  });

  return Response.json(data);
}

Option B: Postmark

• Excellent for transactional email
• Reliable deliverability
• Great if you mostly send signup/reset/receipt emails

Things you still need to handle

Even with a provider, you still need:

• A verified sending domain
• Good email content to avoid spam
• Rate limiting / abuse protection
• Unsubscribe handling for marketing mail
• Webhook handling for bounces/deliverability if relevant

If your goal is to avoid email entirely

If you only need:

• sign-in codes
• magic links
• password resets
• notifications

Then use a managed auth or notification system:

• Clerk
• Auth.js + provider
• Supabase Auth
• Firebase Auth
• Twilio SendGrid/Resend via their examples

These can reduce how much email logic you write.

Recommendation

For a Next.js app, the simplest setup is usually:

• Resend + verified domain + Next.js route handler
• or Postmark if you care mostly about transactional reliability

If you want, I can show you:

1. a complete Next.js + Resend setup, or
2. how to compare Resend vs Postmark vs SendGrid for your use case.