Astro 5: when content and applications converge

Astro 5 has spent nine months in production and has settled into a place of its own in the JavaScript world. Its bet on typed content and friction-free mixed rendering puts it halfway between Next.js and the static-site generators. A time-tested assessment.

September 15, 2025 7 min 250

Software Development

Astro and Islands: The Web That Sends Less JavaScript

Astro renders static HTML by default and only ships JavaScript for the interactive islands that actually need it. On blogs, docs and content sites, the bundle drops from 100-200 KB to roughly 5-10 KB versus Next.js SSG or Gatsby. It is the wrong choice for SaaS dashboards or apps with state shared across routes.

July 13, 2024 5 min 407 4.4