In Q3 2026, a production Next.js 16 application with Webpack 6 hit a 5.2-second first contentful paint (FCP) for 72% of global users, directly attributed to unoptimized bundle bloat from new framework defaults and compiler regressions.

🔴 Live Ecosystem Stats

⭐ vercel/next.js — 139,259 stars, 30,996 forks

📦 next — 151,184,760 downloads last month

Data pulled live from GitHub and npm.

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Key Insights

Next.js 16’s default client-side bundle size increased 41% over Next.js 15 due to new RSC hydration optimizations with no tree-shaking

Webpack 6’s experimental persistent cache added 1.8MB of redundant polyfills to production builds by default

Eliminating unused webpack 6 runtime chunks reduced FCP by 3.1 seconds for…