Why I Built This Blog with Astro Instead of WordPress

When I decided to start a public tech blog, I spent a week evaluating platforms. WordPress, Ghost, Hashnode, plain HTML — I tried them all. Here’s why Astro won.

The Problem with WordPress

WordPress powers 43% of the web. That’s impressive. But for a developer-focused blog, it comes with baggage:

• Performance overhead: A default WordPress install requires dozens of round trips before your article loads.
• Plugin dependency hell: Good SEO on WordPress means installing 3+ plugins and hoping they don’t conflict.
• Opinionated structure: Hard to make it feel yours without fighting the theme system.

Why Astro is Different

Astro ships zero JavaScript by default. Every page is pure HTML and CSS at build time. That means:

# Lighthouse score out of the box
Performance:    100
Accessibility:  100
Best Practices: 100
SEO:            100

That’s not marketing copy — it’s what you actually get with a fresh Astro install.

The SEO Advantages

Beyond speed (which is the biggest ranking factor), Astro gives you total control:

• Canonical URLs: Built-in, no plugin needed
• Sitemap: @astrojs/sitemap generates it at build time
• RSS Feed: One file, done
• Open Graph / Twitter Cards: Just add meta tags to your layout

The Developer Experience

Writing in Markdown or MDX means your content is just text files in a git repo. No database. No CMS lock-in. No subscriptions. Your posts are portable, diffable, and backed up automatically.

The Stack I’m Using

• Framework: Astro 5
• Hosting: Vercel (free tier)
• Domain: blog.bennerdo.org
• Analytics: Vercel Analytics

Total monthly cost: $0.

The Verdict

If you’re a developer starting a tech blog in 2026, Astro is the obvious choice. The performance is unmatched, the SEO is automatic, and you write in plain Markdown. There’s nothing to install, update, or babysit.

Start with npm create astro@latest and have a live site in an afternoon.