Tools/withastro/astro

Astro

The web framework for content-driven websites

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The Lens

By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.

Updated Oct 2026

Astro builds content sites (blogs, docs, marketing pages, portfolios) that ship zero JavaScript by default. Pages render to plain HTML; only components you mark interactive send JS to the browser. The whole framework is MIT licensed and free, with no paid edition.

Hosting is your only cost. A static build runs on any static host, and both GitHub Pages and Cloudflare serve static files free. Server rendering needs a Node host or an adapter for Netlify, Vercel or Cloudflare. Astro 7 shipped in June with a Rust compiler and Vite 8, and Astro's own benchmarks show builds 15 to 61 percent faster.

Solo builders and small teams get the best free content stack going. Bigger teams should use it for docs and marketing and leave the product app to Next.js. For simpler file-based sites, Eleventy and Hugo are still excellent. Astro DB was removed in 7.0; bring your own database.

The catch: Cloudflare acquired the Astro company in January 2026, and every full-time Astro employee now works there. It stays MIT and deploys anywhere, but one host now funds the roadmap. Patch server builds too: a critical remote code execution bug in AVIF image handling was fixed in 7.2.8.

Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid

fully free

Free: The entire framework is MIT licensed: islands, server islands, content collections, MDX, image optimization, sessions, actions, route caching and the official adapters. There is no paid edition and no feature gate. Since January 16, 2026 the Astro team has worked for Cloudflare, which says Astro stays MIT, open to contributions and deployable to any platform; community work is funded through the Astro Ecosystem Fund (with Webflow, Netlify, Wix, Sentry and Stainless) and Open Collective.

Self-hosted: Static output costs nothing on GitHub Pages (public repos on GitHub Free) or Cloudflare, where static asset requests are free and unlimited. Server output needs a Node host or the Netlify, Vercel or Cloudflare adapters, billed at that host's rates. Astro DB is gone: Astro Studio stopped creating databases on October 1, 2024, @astrojs/db was deprecated in 6.4.5 and removed in 7.0, and the package now says to use a database client such as Drizzle or Kysely directly. Keep SSR sites patched: 7.2.8 fixed a critical RCE in AVIF image optimization, and @astrojs/node 11.1.7 fixed an SSRF in the default /_image endpoint.

Paid: Nothing to buy from Astro. You pay your host and whatever database you bring.

Free and MIT with no commercial edition; you pay only your host. Cloudflare now employs the team, but Astro still deploys to any platform.

What to do by team size

Solo: free; a static build hosts for nothing on GitHub Pages or Cloudflare
Small team: free; ideal for the marketing site and docs next to your app
Medium team: free; use it for content properties and leave the product app to Next.js
Large team: free; docs and marketing at zero license cost, with no vendor to negotiate with

Self-hosting ops:trivial

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