Astro.js - My Go-to Framework for Small Business Websites

· 5 min read · Web Development

When a local business owner comes to me looking for a new website, one of the first decisions I make behind the scenes is which technology to build it with. Over the past few years, I have worked with WordPress, Squarespace, React-based frameworks, and a handful of other tools. However, I’ve landed firmly on Astro.js and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Here’s why, and why it should matter to you even if you never write a line of code.

The Overkill Problem

In my experience, most small business websites end up built with tools that are far more complex than they need to be — and business owners end up paying for that complexity whether they realize it or not.

Marketing and creative agencies almost always reach for a CMS like WordPress, regardless of the situation. It’s what they know, and it lets them hand off content editing to the client. But for a local electrician or a shoreline restaurant that updates their site a few times a year, WordPress brings along a database, a plugin ecosystem that needs constant updates, security vulnerabilities, and page bloat that drags down performance. You’re maintaining a content management system to manage content that barely changes.

On the other side, full-stack developers tend to reach for their favorite JavaScript framework — React, Next.js, Vue — because that’s what they build with every day. These are incredible tools for building complex web applications, but a five-page business website isn’t a web application. It’s a digital storefront. Building it with a full-stack framework is like hiring an architect to design a shed.

Both approaches introduce unnecessary complexity, slower load times, and ongoing maintenance overhead for sites that are, at their core, relatively static. Most small business websites need to look great, load fast, rank well in search, and stay out of the owner’s way. That’s exactly the problem Astro.js was designed to solve.

Speed Isn’t a Feature — It’s the Foundation

Let’s start with the thing your visitors notice first, even if they can’t put words to it: how fast your site loads. Studies consistently show that if a page takes more than three seconds to load, over half of mobile visitors will leave. For a small business, where a potential customer might be Googling “electrician near me” from a parking lot, every millisecond counts.

Astro was designed from the ground up with performance in mind. Unlike many modern frameworks that ship heavy JavaScript bundles to the browser, Astro takes a different approach. It renders your pages to static HTML at build time and sends zero JavaScript by default. If a page doesn’t need interactivity, your visitors get pure, lightning-fast HTML and CSS. When a component does need to be interactive such as a contact form or image gallery, Astro loads only that piece of JavaScript and only when it’s needed.

The result? Sites that regularly score in the high 90s on Google’s PageSpeed Insights without heroic optimization efforts.

Google Rewards Fast, Clean Websites

This matters beyond just user experience. Since 2021, Google has used Core Web Vitals which are metrics like Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and Interaction to Next Paint as ranking signals. In plain English: faster, more stable websites tend to rank higher in search results.

For a local business, organic search visibility is everything. You’re not running million-dollar ad campaigns. You need your site to show up when someone searches for what you do in your area. Astro gives you a structural SEO advantage right out of the gate because the HTML it produces is clean, semantic, and fast.

Built for Content, Not Just Code

A lot of modern web frameworks were designed for building complex web applications like dashboards, social platforms, and SaaS products. They’re powerful, but they’re overkill for most business websites. It’s like using a commercial kitchen to make a sandwich.

Astro was built for content-driven websites. Business sites, portfolios, blogs, marketing pages. This is where it shines. It has built-in support for Markdown and MDX, which means writing and managing content is straightforward. Astro also generates clean URL structures and handles image optimization automatically. These are the things that matter when your goal is to attract customers, not build the next Facebook.

Flexibility Without the Bloat

One of Astro’s smartest design decisions is its “island architecture.” If I need a React component for one interactive feature, I can drop it in. If a different piece works better with vanilla JavaScript, that’s fine too. Astro doesn’t lock you into a single ecosystem the way many frameworks do.

For my clients, this means I’m always choosing the best tool for the job rather than forcing everything through one lens. And because Astro only hydrates interactive components when they’re actually needed, you don’t pay a performance penalty for that flexibility.

Paired with Tailwind CSS, It’s a Powerhouse

I pair Astro with Tailwind CSS for styling, which gives me the ability to create fully custom designs without the overhead of bloated CSS frameworks. Every site I build is designed specifically for that business. I do not use cookie-cutter templates, nor themes that look like ten thousand other sites on the internet.

Tailwind keeps the styling lean and maintainable, while Astro keeps the output fast and search-friendly. Together, they let me deliver sites that look custom, load fast, and rank well.

What This Means for Your Business

If you’re a business owner evaluating your web presence, here’s what all of this boils down to:

Your website should load almost instantly on any device. It should be built with clean, semantic code that search engines can easily understand. It should be designed specifically for your brand, not pulled from a template library. And the technology behind it should serve your business goals — attracting customers and building credibility — without unnecessary complexity.

That’s exactly what Astro.js lets me deliver, and it’s why I reach for it on every new project.

I am the founder of Shoreline Web Solutions, crafting custom websites and applications for the modern web. If you’re interested in a site that’s fast, search-friendly, and built from scratch for your business, get in touch.

Works Cited

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