Static sites are making a comeback. With modern tooling, you get the best of both worlds: dynamic-like development experience with static-site performance.
Why Static?
Static sites are fast by nature. There’s no database query, no server-side rendering on each request — just pre-built HTML, CSS, and JS served directly from a CDN.
Why Astro?
I chose Astro for this portfolio for a few key reasons:
- Zero JS by default — Pages ship zero JavaScript unless you explicitly add it.
- Content Collections — Built-in type-safe Markdown/MDX handling with schema validation.
- Island Architecture — You can add interactive components without shipping JS to the entire page.
- Fast builds — Astro’s build pipeline is remarkably quick.
The Developer Experience
Setting up content collections was straightforward. Define a schema in src/content/config.ts, drop Markdown files in src/content/blog/, and Astro handles the rest — including type-safe frontmatter access.