Hi all! I’m building a custom admin dashboard using Next.js 15 with the App Router, Server Actions, and Auth.js — so far, authentication has been working well.

However, as my project grows, I’m starting to feel that I'm reimplementing backend features that are already well-handled in frameworks like Laravel, especially when it comes to:

File validation and handling (e.g. uploading multiple images related to portfolios)

General backend structure (like how Laravel handles requests, validation, authorization, etc.)

I'm concerned that if I keep building everything in Next.js, I might hit a wall where quality, maintainability, and security are harder to guarantee — compared to using a dedicated backend framework.

So my questions are:

Do others here also feel limited by Next.js for backend-heavy logic?

Would using something like Laravel as an external API backend be a smart move?

And are there large companies that also use Next.js only as frontend or BFF, combined with stronger backend stacks like Java/Spring, Rails, etc.?

Thanks in advance for any insight — just trying to make the right long-term architectural decision!