Mastering Scalable Blog Architectures with Next.js and AWS

In this guide, we'll walk through building a production-ready blog using Next.js, AWS S3, and ECS/Fargate — with zero reliance on external CMSs.

🔧 Why Markdown + S3?

• Developer-friendly
• Easy to version control
• Cheap and fast with S3
• Flexible deployment architecture

📁 Folder Structure

blog/
├── markdown/
│   └── f8c9d002
├── images/
│   └── f8c9d002
└── slugs.json

⚙️ Setting Up S3

1. Create an S3 bucket with private access

2. Organize your content:

   • Markdown files → blog/markdown/
   • Hero images → blog/images/
   • Slug map → blog/slugs.json

🧠 Gray Matter Frontmatter

You're using the frontmatter for metadata like this:

---

title: Mastering Scalable Blog Architectures with Next.js and AWS
slug: mastering-scalable-blog-architectures
description: Build serverless blogs with full control.
date: 2024-07-01
---

📦 API Architecture

• /api/blog – Paginated list of all blog summaries
• /api/blog/[slug] – Resolve slug → UUID → blog content

✍️ Rendering Markdown with ReactMarkdown

Install:

npm i react-markdown

Then customize:

<ReactMarkdown components={{
  h2: ({ children }) => <h2 className="text-2xl font-bold mt-6 mb-2">{children}</h2>,
  code: ({ className, children }) => (
    <pre className="bg-black text-sm p-4 rounded-md overflow-x-auto">
      <code>{children}</code>
    </pre>
  ),
}}>{content}</ReactMarkdown>

✅ Final Notes

• Use uuid to pair .md and .jpg files
• Use slug for user-friendly URLs
• Cache slugs.json on the server for fast lookups
• Optional: add CI to validate new blog structure

Happy blogging!