Stack playbook · Snapshot 23 October 2026
Next.js on Amazon CloudFront: readiness playbook
What 688 measured sites on this stack get right, where they fall short, and the Next.js on Amazon CloudFront-specific steps that close each gap.
- Sites measured
- 688
- Median readiness index
- 71/100
- Profiles on this stack
- 484
detected from homepage HTML and headers
all sites: 64
top-50K sites
Readiness by lane
Enable
87/100
All sites 77
Harden
61/100
All sites 56
Accelerate
75/100
All sites 64
Recover
6/100
All sites 10
The Next.js on Amazon CloudFront playbook
Gaps ordered by impact, with the platform-specific step where one exists.
security.txt published
8.3% observed · all sites 7.1%
Publish /.well-known/security.txt with at least Contact and Expires fields, as RFC 9116 requires, and review it before it expires.
CAA records limit who can issue certificates
13% observed · all sites 13%
Publish CAA records naming every CA you actually use, including the CAs your CDN uses for managed certificates. Add an iodef contact if you want reports.
HSTS kept for at least a year
50% observed · all sites 34%
Send Strict-Transport-Security on HTTPS responses. Start with a short max-age (for example 300 seconds), confirm every subdomain works over HTTPS, then raise it in steps to 31536000. Add includeSubDomains only when all subdomains are HTTPS. HSTS preload is optional and hard to undo; hstspreload.org itself does not recommend it by default.
On Next.js: Add the header in the headers() option of next.config.js for all routes.
On Amazon CloudFront: Attach a response headers policy with Strict-Transport-Security to each distribution.
No render-blocking scripts in <head>
42% observed · all sites 48%
Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.
On Next.js: Use the next/script component with an appropriate loading strategy.
Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page
DNSSEC signed
5.7% observed · all sites 8%
Enable DNSSEC at your DNS provider, then add the DS record at your registrar. Plan provider moves carefully: a stale DS record can make the domain fail to resolve.
Guide: Website Uptime Readiness: Prepare Before Traffic Arrives
Certificate lifetime of 100 days or less
8.9% observed · all sites 67%
Move to automated issuance and renewal now, while you still have time to test it.
Modern image formats in use
55% observed · all sites 40%
Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.
On Next.js: The next/image component serves optimized formats automatically.
Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format
HTTP/3 advertised
34% observed · all sites 37%
Turn on HTTP/3 at your CDN. Browsers fall back to HTTP/2 automatically, so the risk is low.
On Amazon CloudFront: Select HTTP/3 in the distribution's supported HTTP versions.
Where Next.js on Amazon CloudFront sites lead
- Offscreen images lazy-loaded91% observedall sites 62%
- Static files cached for 30 days or more78% observedall sites 51%
- DMARC policy enforces quarantine or reject61% observedall sites 39%
- robots.txt published95% observedall sites 76%