Astro

A JavaScript web framework for building fast, content-driven websites. Summary drawn from its homepage (our source). A static-site-generator in the modern “meta-framework” mold.

What it is

• Server-first rendering: ships optimized HTML with zero JavaScript by default, stripping unneeded code.
• islands-architecture: interactive components (“islands”) hydrate individually, server-rendering the rest.
• Content-first: pulls content from the file system, APIs, or a CMS; built-in Content Collections with TypeScript-typed, validated frontmatter.
• Framework-agnostic: supports React, Vue, Preact, Svelte, Solid — no lock-in.
• Features: View Transitions, image optimization, file-based routing, middleware, type-safe Actions, deployment adapters.

Current major: Astro 7.0 (June 2026) — the .astro compiler rewritten Go → Rust (15–61% faster builds, Vite 8 / Rolldown), plus full-stack additions (src/fetch.ts request pipeline, stable Astro.cache route caching with edge-CDN providers, agent-aware astro dev --background). It both narrows Astro’s old build-speed gap and pushes further toward the meta-framework side of SSG.

Performance claim

Per Astro’s own data, 66% of real-world Astro sites pass core-web-vitals — ahead of wordpress (48%), Gatsby (47%), Next.js (30%), Nuxt (28%).

Independently corroborated (and contextualized) by core-web-vitals-wordpress-astro, a CrUX field-data ranking: Astro 67%, but ranked 4th — behind hosted site builders Duda (85%), Wix (80%), Shopify (79%), and ahead of Drupal (64%), Joomla (58%), wordpress (49%). So Astro leads the open developer-framework pack, not the field overall.

Positioning & traction

Targets marketing sites, blogs, e-commerce, portfolios. ~52,900 GitHub stars (jamstack-generators-list). Downloads roughly doubled 4.59M→9.24M in early 2026 (wordpress-market-share-decline), cited as evidence of momentum against WordPress. Contrast its build speed with eleventy, which benchmarks ~12× faster on a 4,000-file build.

Ecosystem — themes

Astro runs an official themes gallery: ~900 community-submitted, ready-made sites (free and paid) across blog, portfolio, e-commerce, SaaS, docs, and education. It’s the turnkey-template layer that historically belonged to wordpress — a sign the SSG world is maturing past the bare generator.