Hello Astro: The Migration Story

Hello Astro!

If you’re reading this, it means the migration to Astro was a success! 🚀

Why the switch?

My previous portfolio was built as a Single Page Application (SPA) using React and Vite. While powerful, SPAs can sometimes be overkill for content-focused sites like portfolios and blogs. They often suffer from:

• Larger Bundle Sizes: Shipping the entire React runtime just to render static text.
• SEO Challenges: Search engines sometimes struggle to index dynamic JavaScript content.
• Slower Initial Load: The browser has to download, parse, and execute JavaScript before showing anything meaningful.

Enter Astro

Astro takes a different approach called Islands Architecture.

1. Zero JS by Default: Astro renders your pages to static HTML at build time.
2. Interactive Islands: You can still use React components (like my particle background or project cards) where you need interactivity, but they are loaded independently.
3. Content Collections: Managing blog posts and project data is now type-safe and easy with Markdown and JSON files.

The Result

• Faster Load Times: The site loads almost instantly.
• Better SEO: Google loves static HTML.
• Clean Codebase: No more complex routing logic or state management for simple pages.

I’m excited to continue building on this new foundation!