03 · Technology
Astro, on the merits.
Content and marketing sites built on heavy JavaScript frameworks often load slowly on phones and cost more to run than they should. Astro renders pages to HTML at build time and sends JavaScript only for the parts of a page that are interactive, so speed is part of the architecture rather than a retrofit. It is our default for content-driven sites, and this site is built on it. This service covers Astro work itself: new Astro builds, Astro front ends for a headless CMS, and moves onto Astro from other JavaScript frameworks. Moving an existing WordPress site has its own migration service, and if you haven't chosen a platform yet, start with website development.
What you walk away with
- A site that ships as static HTML, with JavaScript only where a page earns it.
- Core Web Vitals treated as a build target from the first commit.
- Interactive pieces, such as calculators or search, added as islands without slowing the rest of the page.
- Typed content collections and reusable components your team can keep shipping on.
- A straight answer when Astro is the wrong tool.
What it covers
- Custom Astro sites
- Marketing sites, documentation and content-driven products built on Astro from the ground up, each held to a strict performance budget.
- Astro as a headless front end
- The fast presentation layer in a composable stack: Astro reading from a content API and rendering static pages. Choosing and modeling the CMS is covered by our headless CMS service.
- Moves from heavier frameworks
- Content sites built as single-page apps, rebuilt on Astro with their URLs mapped and redirected. WordPress sites have their own migration service.
- Islands architecture
- Interactivity exactly where a page needs it and nowhere it does not, so JavaScript is spent deliberately instead of shipped by default to every visitor.
- Installable sites
- Progressive web app features, such as installing to a home screen and an offline page, for sites customers come back to.
- Performance engineering
- Core Web Vitals as an engineering target rather than a hope, including the interaction-responsiveness work behind a good INP score.
- Content and component systems
- Content collections, typed schemas and reusable components, so a fast site is also one your team can maintain.
Is it the right fit?
Right for you if
- Content-driven and marketing sites, where Astro's static output is usually the faster and cheaper choice.
- Documentation and content-driven products.
- The front end of a headless build.
- Content sites built as single-page apps that load slowly on phones.
Probably not if
- Projects that are genuinely applications, with dense real-time interactivity throughout, where a framework like Next.js may be the better default.
- A WordPress site you want moved: that is our WordPress-to-Astro migration, where the audit and URL mapping are most of the work.
Why Astro is our default
Much of the web ships entire applications to the browser for pages that are, at heart, documents. A marketing site built as a heavy single-page app pays for interactivity it never uses: JavaScript downloaded, parsed and run on a phone just to show text and images. A lot of slow sites trace back to that framework default, not to their content.
Astro inverts it. By default it renders every component to HTML and CSS and strips out client-side JavaScript, loading scripts only for the components marked as interactive. You get the authoring comfort of a modern component framework with the delivery profile of a hand-built static site, so performance is the starting condition rather than something you fight to preserve.
A default is not a religion, though. Having one means depth: we know where Astro bends and where it breaks. When a project needs a different tool, we would rather recommend it than keep the comfort of a single stack.
A recent refactor
For Roseville Star Ready Mix, a ready-mix concrete delivery company in Roseville, California, we refactored its 12-page Astro site, which has been live in its new form since early October 2026. Removing React cut client-side JavaScript from about 230 KB to 5.5 KB, per our build report. The site’s concrete calculator was kept and put under unit tests, the 23 communities it serves are published by measured distance, and the site now installs as a progressive web app with an offline page.
The decision rule is simple: if most of a site is pages people read, build it on Astro and spend JavaScript only where a visitor does something. If most of it is screens people work in, look at our web applications service instead.
How the work runs
Every engagement moves through the same five stages, with one team throughout.
Understand
A first conversation and a look at what already exists: your position, your customers’ path, your traffic and your technology.
Define
Positioning, scope and architecture decided deliberately and written down, so everyone knows what is being built and why.
Design
Brand, content and interface designed together, against those decisions rather than the fashion of the month.
Build
Built with speed, accessibility and security as requirements, and reviewed on a staging site before anything goes live.
Improve
Launch is the start. We measure what matters, fix what drifts and report in plain language.
Further reading
- Astro vs Next.js: Which Framework for a Marketing Site in 2026?Astro vs Next.js for a content or marketing site: how they differ on performance, complexity and cost, and a clear rule for choosing between them.
- Core Web Vitals for Scaling WordPress: Beyond Caching PluginsCaching plugins only go so far. What actually limits Core Web Vitals on large WordPress sites, how to fix each cause, and when the architecture is the ceiling.
- INP Optimization: How to Fix Interaction to Next PaintWhat a good Interaction to Next Paint score is, why sites fail it, and the concrete fixes that bring INP under 200 milliseconds for real users.
Astro development: common questions
Why do you build on Astro by default?
Because for content-driven and marketing sites it is usually the better trade. It renders to HTML at build time and sends JavaScript only for the components that need it, so sites are fast from the start instead of needing a retrofit. We chose it on the merits, not because it is fashionable.
When is Astro the wrong choice?
When a project is genuinely an application, with dense, real-time interactivity throughout rather than a content site with a few interactive moments, a framework like Next.js may be the better default. We would rather say so than force every project onto one stack. Our Astro and Next.js comparison lays out where each one wins.
Can you move our slow site to Astro?
Yes. If it is a WordPress site, our WordPress-to-Astro migration covers the audit, URL mapping and cutover; Roseville Landscape Material Supply made that move with us. If it is built on a heavier JavaScript framework, we rebuild it on Astro and map every URL. What a site ships matters as much as its framework: refactoring Roseville Star Ready Mix's Astro site without React cut its client-side JavaScript from about 230 KB to 5.5 KB, per our build report.
How is this different from your website development service?
Website development is the whole project when the platform is still open: discovery, design, build and launch, on whichever stack fits. This service is for when Astro is the answer, or you want an Astro specialist, and covers the engineering in depth.