Frequently Asked Questions

#What problem is Contentlayer solving?

Modern web frameworks don't prescribe a method for parsing content. They provide powerful page routing and rendering processes, but it's up to you to provide it with content.

That's a lot of work. Without the time and energy to build a truly great processing mechanism, it's easy to quickly degrade the developer experience these tools have afforded us.

Contentlayer persists the great developer experience provided by modern web frameworks by making it easy to work with content in your web project.

#Why is Contentlayer fast?

Contentlayer leverages optimizations of build tools to the fullest to make processing source content a breeze.

It then caches that content intelligently and builds incrementally. When you update content, Contentlayer will only build what has changed, taking advantage of work already done.

#Can I use Contentlayer with my existing tools?

Contentlayer is built to be framework agnostic. Contentlayer is a content processor at its core, but provides modules for importing content from various sources, and uses plugins to provide tight integration with modern frameworks.

Our docs list current supported sources and frameworks. And if you don't see what you're looking for, start a discussion. We're constantly looking for new use cases to consider.

#Next.js already supports MDX. Why do I need Contentlayer?

It is a misconception that Next.js inherently supports MDX. Next.js makes no inference whatsoever about where your content lives and how it should be processed.

Libraries like mdx-bundler and next-mdx-remote provide tooling to help in processing MDX. In addition to processing MDX, Contentlayer also parses and validates content and provides auto-generated TypeScript type definitions. And it does so while prioritizing performance and developer experience.

Learn more about how Contentlayer compares to other content processors.

---