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The Next.js to Astro Switch: Performance and a Fresh Look
I completely remade my website. For a long time, I used Next.js, which is great, especially with Vercel for hosting. Everything worked fine, but I wanted to try something new.
At work, I’m doing a lot with Svelte now, and I really like how simple and fast it is. I realized that Next.js was unnecessarily complicated for my website, which mainly consists of a blog and portfolio. I was carrying around a bunch of JavaScript that I didn’t even need.
Then I came across Astro and was immediately drawn to their philosophy: minimum JavaScript, maximum speed. It reminded me of Svelte, and I knew it was right for my blog.
I took the transition seriously. Even though Vercel supports both, I didn’t want to mess around with it and rewrote almost all the components to take full advantage of the speed boost. While I was at it, I also created a new, more modern design.
The difference is huge. The website is now lightning fast, and pages load almost instantly. This transition wasn’t just about technology, but about returning to how a website should be made. And most importantly, I enjoy working with Astro much more now.
Astro vs. Next.js
- Performance: This is the biggest difference. Next.js is built on React, and despite all its optimizations, it still has to send JavaScript runtime to the browser. Astro, on the other hand, adheres to the philosophy of
zero JavaScript by default
. It sends clean HTML and CSS to the client and only loads JavaScript for those specific components that absolutely need to be interactive. This makes Astro-based websites incredibly fast, especially those that are content-heavy, such as blogs. - Use cases: Next.js is a fantastic choice for building complex, interactive web applications and dashboards with a lot of user interaction. It is a full-fledged application framework. Astro excels at content-focused websites such as blogs, portfolios, and marketing sites where speed and SEO are a priority.
- Framework independence: Next.js is a framework built on React, so if you don’t use React, it’s not the right tool for you. Astro is different. It is a “meta-framework” that allows you to use components from different UI frameworks, including React, Svelte, Vue, and others, all in one project. This flexibility is a huge advantage.
- Developer experience (DX): Next.js has a very mature and rich ecosystem built on React. The developer experience with Astro is simpler and feels more focused on the task at hand, which I find more enjoyable for my types of projects. It’s easy to get started with, especially if you’re comfortable with HTML and CSS.
In short, Next.js is the perfect workhorse for a full-scale web application, while Astro is the lean, mean, speed machine for content-driven websites.