Why I picked Astro over WordPress
For a content-first personal site, shipping less JavaScript by default mattered more than a plugin ecosystem I'd never fully use.
I’ve run WordPress sites before. They work, but the overhead is real: PHP hosting, plugin updates, a database for content that’s fundamentally just text and dates.
What changed my mind
Static-first frameworks like Astro ship zero JavaScript by default and only hydrate the components that need interactivity — islands, not a full app shell. For a site that’s mostly essays with the occasional interactive tool, that’s exactly the shape I want.
What I’m giving up
No admin UI, no plugin marketplace, no hosted comments out of the box. All of that gets rebuilt with code instead of configuration. That’s a fair trade for me specifically, because I’d rather write a component than debug a plugin conflict.