Astro blog vs Jekyll

I was using Jekyll to power this blog. Jekyll is a great static site generator that made publishing content easy. However, as my site grew, I encountered limitations that led me to switch to Astro.

Faster Build Times

Astro provides significantly faster build performance through optimized JavaScript handling and incremental rebuilds. This enables faster development and production builds. While Jekyll has incremental builds too, Astro’s approach is more efficient for my use case.

Improved DX

Astro’s developer experience is more modern and intuitive. It handles TypeScript, routing, and code splitting automatically. Integrating frameworks like React, Preact, Vue, Svelte etc is easy. Jekyll requires more configuration.

The syntax is familiar for Jekyll users but avoids complex template logic. Astro’s learning curve is manageable even for beginners.

Flexible Data Handling

Astro’s flexible data loading system makes fetching content from APIs, CMSs, and local files intuitive. Jekyll can handle multiple data sources too, but Astro’s approach is more streamlined.

Astro also supports static paths for dynamic content generation. This eliminated the need to use Jekyll collections, which I found limiting.

Customization and Theming

Both generators have theme markets, but theming is more flexible in Astro using CSS variables and component shadowing. Jekyll requires template overrides.

Jekyll is great for blogs, but Astro is designed for any type of site, like docs, e-commerce, and more. Features like layouts, styling, and data integrations work much better in Astro.

I also found beautiful Astro themes that I could use out of the box, the one that I have used here 😊!

SEO and Performance

Astro’s partial hydration and optimized JavaScript handling contribute to better SEO and overall page performance compared to Jekyll. This is crucial for improving the visibility and user experience of my blog.

Mature Ecosystem

Jekyll has a mature plugin ecosystem. Astro is newer but has growing community support and resources.

Learning Curve

Astro’s learning curve is relatively low, especially for developers familiar with modern JavaScript frameworks. Jekyll has a simpler template language, but Astro’s flexibility and features make it worth the investment of time.

Astro uses a JSX-like syntax, which is familiar to developers experienced with React. Jekyll uses Liquid, a template language designed specifically for Jekyll. While Liquid is simpler, Astro’s syntax allows for more powerful and flexible templating.

They both support Markdown, but Astro’s Markdown support is more robust.

Hosting and Deployment

Both Astro and Jekyll can be easily deployed on popular platforms like Netlify, Vercel, and GitHub Pages. However, Astro’s optimized build process can lead to faster deployment times and better performance.

Conclusion

I’m glad I switched to Astro which solves my Jekyll limitations around performance, developer experience, data handling, and theming. Astro’s growing community gives me confidence for the future.

Let me know if you need any clarification or expansion on the comparison points. I want to ensure I fully capture all the key details.