Getting Started with Astro

Astro has quickly become one of my favorite tools for building content-focused websites. Its “islands architecture” approach and emphasis on shipping less JavaScript make it perfect for blogs, documentation sites, and portfolios.

What Makes Astro Special

Unlike traditional JavaScript frameworks that hydrate entire pages, Astro only hydrates the interactive components you explicitly mark for client-side rendering. This results in dramatically faster page loads and better Core Web Vitals scores.

Key Features

• Zero JS by default: Astro generates static HTML with no JavaScript unless you need it
• Islands Architecture: Hydrate only the components that need interactivity
• Multi-framework support: Use React, Vue, Svelte, or any framework together
• Built-in optimizations: Automatic image optimization, CSS bundling, and more

Building Your First Astro Site

Getting started is straightforward:

npm create astro@latest my-site
cd my-site
npm run dev

The development experience is excellent, with fast hot module replacement and helpful error messages.

When to Choose Astro

Astro excels for:

• Blogs and content sites
• Documentation
• Marketing pages
• E-commerce product pages
• Portfolios

For highly interactive applications, you might still prefer a traditional SPA framework, but for most content-focused sites, Astro’s performance benefits are hard to beat.