Astro Web Development
Sites that load before the competition finishes parsing.
Most frameworks ship JavaScript whether the page needs it or not. Astro doesn't. Pages build to static HTML — JavaScript loads only where it's required.
The Architecture
Islands architecture
Your page is static HTML. Interactive pieces — forms, calculators, widgets — are isolated islands that load JavaScript only when needed. Everything else: zero JS cost.
90% less JavaScript
An equivalent Next.js marketing page loads in 2.8 seconds. An Astro build loads in 0.9 seconds. Still meaningful in competitive search verticals where Core Web Vitals are a ranking tiebreaker.
Immediately crawlable
Every page is fully rendered HTML. No JavaScript rendering step for Googlebot, no hydration delays on first load. The entire content of every page is available to crawlers the moment they land.
Zero lock-in
Astro is MIT-licensed. The code we hand over belongs to you completely. Deploy to Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, or your own server. No Designodin-controlled service required after launch.
WordPress across all builds: 43%.
Who We Build For
Professional services
Law firms, consultancies, accounting practices, financial advisors. A slow load on a partner's phone is a credibility problem. We've rebuilt firms that were embarrassed by their own site — Elementor builds with 60+ plugins that took 8 seconds on mobile. The rebuild case study below is typical.
B2B SaaS & product companies
Technical buyers Google before they call. A product marketing site that loads in under a second, passes Core Web Vitals, and renders complete content to Googlebot is doing more sales work than any outbound sequence. Astro's crawlability advantage is largest in this category.
Agencies & studios
Portfolio sites, case study libraries, team pages. Your site needs to outperform every client site you've built — a Lighthouse score of 97 on your own domain is the most effective credential in the first meeting. We've rebuilt agency sites that were the slowest in their own portfolio.
Content publishers & resource hubs
Documentation sites, research libraries, long-form editorial. Build-time rendering means every article is indexed at full content from day one — no crawl budget wasted on JavaScript rendering, no hydration delay before the text arrives. At scale, that indexation advantage compounds.
Right for
- Marketing sites & brand presences Product companies, professional services, B2B businesses. Performance advantage largest where content-to-interactivity ratio is high.
- Content hubs & resource libraries Documentation, guides, long-form blog sections. Build-time rendering means every page is immediately crawlable with full content.
- High-stakes landing pages Any page where conversion is measured. Sub-500ms LCP is standard, not aspirational.
- Performance-first rebuilds If your site scores under 50 on mobile Lighthouse and the fix requires a rebuild, Astro earns the conversation.
Not for
- E-commerce WooCommerce has 4.5 million stores, 68,000+ plugins, and a mature ecosystem for payments, inventory, and shipping. Astro has none of that natively.
- Sites your team updates weekly WordPress has a built-in editor non-technical users can operate without a developer. Astro requires a headless CMS for that workflow.
- Unknown long-term maintainers WordPress developers are everywhere. Astro's talent pool is growing but smaller. If you're unsure who maintains in three years, WordPress is the lower-risk choice.
How We Build
Scope & architecture
Every page, component, and data flow defined before writing code. CMS requirements — if you need non-developer content editing — are determined at this stage, not discovered mid-build.
Design integration
We work from your Figma files or develop design in-build. Islands are identified early: what's static, what's interactive, and what triggers JavaScript loading.
Component development
Every section written from scratch. No template kits. Lighthouse testing runs throughout the build — performance problems caught early cost less to fix.
Deploy & handover
Deploy to your infrastructure of choice. Complete source code, architecture documentation, credentials. Nothing locked to us after launch.
The Honest Comparison
Astro vs our WordPress builds
| Astro | Custom WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Lighthouse score (our builds) | 95–100 | 90–98 |
| Core Web Vitals pass rate | 60% | 43% |
| Content editing without a developer | No — headless CMS required | Yes — Gutenberg |
| E-commerce | Not suitable | WooCommerce — excellent |
| Hosting cost | $0–$20/mo (static CDN) | $20–$100/mo (managed WP) |
| Maintenance overhead | Low — no plugin cycles | Moderate — plugin management |
| Security attack surface | Very small — no database | Larger — manageable |
| Developer talent pool | Growing; premium rates | Large; competitive rates |
The 43% WordPress CWV figure includes millions of Elementor installs and sites on $5/month hosting. A properly built custom WordPress site regularly hits 90–98. The decision turns on workflow: who updates the site, and how often.
The Stack
In Practice
A professional services firm came to us averaging 34 on mobile Lighthouse. Two years on Elementor — 47 active plugins, three conflicting caching solutions. A performance fix within that stack wasn't realistic. We rebuilt in Astro: pure HTML for the service pages, a single React island for the inquiry form.
Mobile Lighthouse hit 97 on launch day.
A B2B software company had a documentation site at 51 on mobile Lighthouse and a sales site on Webflow they'd outgrown. Their sales team reported that prospects bounced before the demo request form loaded. We rebuilt both in Astro — documentation as a static content hub with Sanity for editorial updates, sales site as pure HTML with a single React island for demo booking.
Sales site scores 99 on mobile. Documentation drives 40% of inbound leads.
Who Does The Work
Senior-only.
No handoffs.
The developer who scopes your project builds it. Not a junior handed a spec after the kickoff call. Astro expertise at this level is not commodity — the talent pool is small and the builds require fluency with Islands architecture, build-time rendering patterns, and CMS integration at depth.
We take fewer projects than most agencies. The ones we take, we build properly.
FAQ
Does Astro work with a CMS?
Yes. Astro integrates with Contentful, Sanity, Storyblok, Prismic. Content is fetched at build time and compiled into static HTML. Most headless CMS plans run $99–$999/month depending on usage, factored into project scope.
Can I update my own content after the build?
It depends on the setup. With a headless CMS integration, yes — through the dashboard without developer involvement. Without one, content lives in Markdown files that require a developer to edit. We're direct about this at the scoping stage.
Is Astro better for SEO than WordPress?
In one specific way: Astro serves fully-rendered HTML to crawlers with no JavaScript rendering step. Core Web Vitals performance — a ranking signal — is also higher on average. A well-built WordPress site handles both correctly too. Astro's SEO advantage is meaningful in competitive verticals.
What if I need to switch developers later?
You own the code. Everything is documented and handed over completely. A developer who knows JavaScript can work with an Astro codebase — though the talent pool is smaller than WordPress.
Do you offer ongoing maintenance?
Yes. Less routine than WordPress — no plugin update cycles, no database — but dependency updates, content changes, and build pipeline maintenance still need attention. We offer retainers on projects we've built.
Ready to scope an Astro build?
Tell us what you're working on. We'll tell you whether Astro, WordPress, or WooCommerce is the right foundation.