Astro Explained: Websites That Ship Less JavaScript
Introduction Most modern frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte — all covered earlier) send JavaScript to the browser to build the page there. That works, but it makes pages heavier and slower, especially on content sites like blogs and documentation where most of the page never changes. Astro, released in 2021, flips the default: it builds your pages to plain HTML on the server at build time, and ships zero JavaScript to the browser unless you explicitly ask for an interactive piece. For content-heavy sites, that default is a genuine speed advantage. Islands: interactivity only where you need it Astro's core idea is islands architecture. A page is mostly static HTML, with interactive "islands" — a search box, a comment form, a chart — that hydrate (become interactive) independently. You can even write islands in different frameworks on the same page: a React island beside a Svelte island, with Astro as the shell. A basic Astro component looks familiar to anyone who knows HTML...