Serlabs

Experimenting with Astro

Published on 4/16/2025, 9:00:00 PM by Eliecer Sánchez

Astro logo

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with Astro, a modern framework for building fast, efficient websites with excellent performance. Astro is built on a powerful idea: only send to the browser what is strictly necessary. This allows you to create super-fast, optimized sites without sacrificing the developer experience. One of its biggest appeals is the ability to integrate multiple technologies like React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, and others within the same project seamlessly.

One thing that has really surprised me is its “islands of interactivity” architecture. This strategy allows static content to load first (great for SEO and speed), and then selectively hydrates the interactive parts. Overall, my experience has been very positive: the learning curve is smooth, the ecosystem is well-documented, and the performance of the sites I’ve built with Astro is outstanding. Plus, the simplicity of deploying to platforms like Vercel or Netlify makes it even more appealing.

Quick Guide to Install Astro

  1. Prerequisites Make sure you have installed:
node -v
npm -v
  1. Create a New Astro Project Using npm:
npm create astro@latest

Using pnpm:

pnpm create astro@latest

Using yarn:

yarn create astro

Follow the interactive prompt to:

  1. Navigate to Your Project
cd your-project-name
  1. Install Dependencies
npm install

Or with pnpm:

pnpm install
  1. Start the Development Server
npm run dev

Visit your site at: http://localhost:4321

  1. Build for Production (Optional)
npm run build

That’s it! Your Astro project is now up and running.

To show you how easy it is to get started, here’s a small example of a basic “Hello World” component written in Astro:

---
// This is an .astro component
const name = "Astro";
---
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Hello from Astro</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello, {name}!</h1>
  </body>
</html>

If you want to learn more about Astro, here are some very useful links:

In summary, if you’re looking for a modern, efficient, and fun way to build websites, Astro definitely deserves your attention.

Tags

#astro