Astro: the modern alternative to Joomla and WordPress

Speed

Astro websites are extremely fast because they are built as static HTML. No database is needed for each page view. Joomla and WordPress need to query the database first for every visit, which causes delays.

Result: Astro websites load in milliseconds, while Joomla/WordPress websites often need seconds.

Security

Static websites have no database or server-side code that can be hacked. Joomla and WordPress are regularly targeted by hackers due to known vulnerabilities in plugins and themes.

SEO options

Astro offers excellent SEO capabilities:

• Static pages are fully indexed by search engines
• Full control over meta tags, Open Graph and structured data
• Fast loading pages (important ranking factor for Google)
• Automatic sitemap generation
• Hreflang tags for multilingual websites

Maintenance and updates

Joomla and WordPress:

• Regular core updates needed
• Plugins and extensions need frequent updates
• Theme updates can cause compatibility issues
• Annual costs for premium themes and plugins ($50-$200+ each)
• Risk of hacks due to outdated software

Astro:

• Minimal maintenance required
• No database to maintain
• No annual costs for themes or plugins
• Updates are simple and rarely break anything
• Secure by static design

Setting up an Astro website is easy. You only need Node.js on your computer.

Step1: Installation

Open a terminal and run the following commands:

npm create astro@latest my-website
cd my-website
npm install
npm run dev

Your website is now locally available at http://localhost:4321/

Step2: Create pages

Astro uses files in the src/pages/ folder. Each .astro or .md file automatically becomes a page:

src/pages/
├── index.astro      → /
├── about.astro       → /about/
├── contact.astro     → /contact/
└── blog/
    └── my-post.md    → /blog/my-post/

Step3: Add content

For blog articles you can use Markdown files in src/content/. This makes it easy to manage content without coding knowledge.

Step4: Publish

Build your website for production with:

npm run build

The generated files in the dist/ folder can be uploaded to any web hosting provider.

Editors

• Visual Studio Code (free) - the most popular code editor with Astro extensions
• Astro Visual Editor - visual editing directly in the browser

CMS systems (optional)

If you want a visual editor for your content:

• Astro Studio - the official CMS from Astro
• Decap CMS (formerly Netlify CMS) - free open-source CMS
• Sanity - powerful headless CMS with free tier
• Contentful - popular headless CMS

Templates and themes

• Astro Themes (themes.astro.build) - hundreds of free templates
• Starlight - specifically for documentation websites
• AstroWind - popular template for business websites

Maintaining an Astro website is minimal:

What you need to do

• Update content: edit Markdown files and publish again
• Updates: occasionally run npm update (optional, not critical)
• Backups: your Git repository is automatically your backup

What you DON’T need to do

• No database maintenance
• No security updates for plugins
• No annual license fees
• No worries about hacks or malware

Astro is not suitable for:

• Websites that need a lot of server-side functionality
• Complex web applications with user login and databases
• Websites that need real-time updates

For these cases, Joomla, WordPress or a custom solution are better suited.