Table of Contents
Welcome to my new site!
I finally migrated from my old WordPress blog to a brand-new Astro site. Here’s why I made the switch, what I love about Astro, and what you can expect next.
Why now?
Fit My Learning Path
I have been teaching myself full-stack web development for the past year. Recently, I got through the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React learning sections in the courses I have been following. After working partway through a Udemy course by Angela Yu (which had some discontinued content) I shifted to the Odin Project. The React assignments there felt stale, so I decided to build something of my own. Remembering my old blog, I realized I could use a static site generator that lets me keep working with HTML, CSS, JS, and React. That’s how I discovered Astro.
I’ve also populated my Projects page with the work I’ve done this year; just filter by the “Web Development” tag to see the collection.
Frustration with WordPress
WordPress quickly became a source of frustration for several reasons:
Cumbersome publishing workflow - Every time I wanted to publish a post I had to copy text from Google Docs, paste it into the rich-text editor, and then painstakingly re-format each paragraph. Writing in Markdown with Astro eliminates that whole process and lets me add a post simply by dropping a file into the repository.
Costly hosting - I was paying for a Hostinger plan that billed monthly for a service I didn’t really need. Because static websites have no server compute or services that need to run (although that can be added into Astro with server islands and Astro DB), I can host it for free on platforms such as Netlify (which offers a generous free tier and a one-click Astro deployment). If traffic ever grows beyond the free limits or my server-side needs expand, I’m thinking of moving to a VPS and still retaining full control. I will also have the opportunity of flexing some of my IT skills on a VPS.
Backup and recovery worries - With WordPress I constantly feared running into recovery issues should a catastrophe happen. I ended up upgrading to a higher-tier Hostinger subscription just to get automated backups, and even then I felt uneasy about restoring the site if something went wrong. In contrast, my Astro site lives in a single Git repository; the entire site can be rebuilt from that repo at any time, removing the need for separate backup services.
Limited design flexibility - I used Elementor for page design, but many features were locked behind a paywall, and I couldn’t tweak everything the way I wanted. Astro gives me complete ownership of the markup and styling. Nothing appears on the site unless I explicitly add it, which is exactly the level of control I’ve been looking for.
Aesthetics
I wanted a clean, minimalist design with a dark theme that’s easy on the eyes. Astro’s theme ecosystem gave me plenty of options. I settled on the astro-sphere theme, forked it, and I now run my own customized version.
I also needed expressive code-block rendering for tutorials and project documentation. Expressive Code does the job nicely, handling everything from YAML to Python. Unlike Elementor on WordPress, which locked many features behind a paywall, Astro gives me full control and the ability to add any visual feature I want.
What’s Next
Astro dramatically reduces the friction of publishing, so expect more content, although I’m not sure how much that will be 😅.
Feel free to explore my Web Development journey via the Projects tab.