Building Fast Websites with Astro

When it comes to content-driven websites like blogs, documentation, or marketing pages, Astro is hard to beat. Here’s why I chose it for this blog.

The Island Architecture

Astro’s killer feature is its “Island Architecture”. By default, Astro ships zero JavaScript to the browser. Interactive components are loaded only when needed.

---
// This component is interactive
import Counter from '../components/Counter';
---

<!-- Only loads JS when visible -->
<Counter client:visible />

Content Collections

Astro’s Content Collections provide type-safe content management:

// src/content/config.ts
import { defineCollection, z } from 'astro:content';

const blog = defineCollection({
  type: 'content',
  schema: z.object({
    title: z.string(),
    pubDate: z.coerce.date(),
    tags: z.array(z.string()),
  }),
});

Why Not Next.js or Nuxt?

Don’t get me wrong - Next.js and Nuxt are excellent frameworks. But for content-focused sites:

Feature	Astro	Next.js
Default JS	0 KB	~80+ KB
Content Collections	Built-in	Third-party
Learning Curve	Low	Medium
MDX Support	Native	Plugin

Getting Started

# Create a new Astro project
npm create astro@latest

# Add React (or Vue, Svelte, etc.)
npx astro add react

# Start developing
npm run dev

Performance Results

This blog scores:

• Performance: 100
• Accessibility: 100
• Best Practices: 100
• SEO: 100

All with minimal effort, thanks to Astro’s sensible defaults.

Conclusion

If you’re building a content-driven website, give Astro a try. The developer experience is excellent, and your users will thank you for the fast load times.

Happy building!