Astro: The Modern Static Site Builder — A Deep Dive, Comparisons, and Practical API Integrations

In the rapidly evolving landscape of frontend development, new tools emerge frequently, each promising to make web development faster, more efficient, or more enjoyable. One of the most exciting modern frameworks gaining traction is Astro. It’s often described as a static site builder with a fresh take on delivering fast websites by default, and it challenges the traditional paradigms popularised by tools like 11ty and Next.js.

In this article, we’ll explore Astro from the ground up: what it is, how it differs from similar tools, and how you can integrate modern APIs like Monday.com to build dynamic, scalable, and lightning-fast websites.

What is Astro?

Astro is a modern static site generator designed for speed and flexibility. Unlike many frameworks that focus heavily on client-side JavaScript, Astro emphasizes shipping zero or minimal JavaScript to the browser by default. It achieves this through its innovative Islands architecture, where only interactive components load JavaScript, and the rest of the page remains static HTML.

Astro supports multiple UI frameworks in the same project — React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, and more — giving developers incredible flexibility. It also features:

• A component-driven architecture.
• Support for server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG).
• Built-in support for Markdown and MDX.
• Simple, markdown-style content authoring.
• Modern tooling with Vite under the hood.

Early Learnings & Practical Usage

Getting Started

The first step with Astro is usually to scaffold a project with a starter template. You’ll quickly notice how lightweight the project is and how fast builds complete. Unlike traditional React apps, you’re encouraged to write mostly static content with occasional interactivity.

The syntax is a blend of HTML, Markdown, and your favorite UI components. For example, creating a contact form or landing page is straightforward:

--- title: ContactUs --- <h1>{title}</h1> <formmethod="POST"action="/thanks-send-info"netlify> <inputtype="text"name="name"placeholder="Your Name*"required /> <inputtype="email"name="email"placeholder="Email*"required /> <buttontype="submit">Send Enquiry</button> </form>

React Components Inside Astro

If you prefer React, you can create React components and import them directly into Astro files. The React code runs only where needed:

LeadGenForm.jsxexportdefaultfunctionLeadGenForm() { return ( <formmethod="POST"action="/thanks-send-info"netlify> {/* form inputs here */} </form> ); }

And then use it in your .astro page:

--- import LeadGenForm from '../components/LeadGenForm.jsx'; --- <LeadGenForm client:load />

The client:load directive tells Astro to hydrate this component only on the client side, minimizing JavaScript sent by default.

How Astro Differs from 11ty and Next.js

Astro often gets compared to 11ty and Next.js, but it occupies a unique space between them.

Astro vs 11ty

11ty (Eleventy) is a very popular static site generator that is extremely flexible, minimal, and straightforward. It uses template languages like Nunjucks, Liquid, or plain HTML with JavaScript data files. It’s great for static sites, blogs, documentation, and projects where the entire site can be rendered as static HTML.

Strengths of 11ty:

• Very simple, file-based system.
• No client-side JavaScript framework required.
• Great for fast, purely static sites.
• Highly customizable templating.

Limitations:

• No built-in support for React or other frontend frameworks.
• No default client-side interactivity; you must manually integrate if needed.
• Limited server-side rendering capabilities.

Astro, in contrast:

• Has native support for React, Vue, Svelte, and other components.
• Uses an Islands architecture to enable partial hydration.
• Can do static generation and server-side rendering.
• Has built-in support for Markdown with components.

Thus, Astro feels like a natural evolution of 11ty with added support for modern frontend technologies and more advanced hydration patterns.

Astro vs Next.js

Next.js is a full-featured React framework with extensive support for server-side rendering (SSR), API routes, client-side rendering, and static site generation (SSG). It’s incredibly powerful and flexible, primarily focused on React apps.

Strengths of Next.js:

• Powerful React-based SSR and SSG.
• Rich ecosystem and plugins.
• API routes and serverless functions baked in.
• Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR).

Limitations:

• Heavier by default, shipping React and JavaScript everywhere.
• Less flexible with multiple frameworks since it’s React-focused.
• More complex setup and build times.

Astro differentiates itself by:

• Being framework-agnostic — not tied to React.
• Prioritizing minimal JavaScript by default.
• Encouraging static-first sites with partial hydration only where needed.
• Being simpler for pure content-heavy or marketing sites that only occasionally need React or interactivity.

In other words, if you want a React-centric app with full SSR and API support, Next.js is still the king. But if you want a blazing fast site that uses React (or other frameworks) only where necessary, Astro is often better.

Practical API Integration Example: Monday.com with Astro

One common challenge in modern web development is integrating third-party APIs to create dynamic content. Monday.com is a popular work management and project tracking tool with a powerful REST API. You can use Astro to fetch data from Monday.com’s API at build time or runtime and render it efficiently.

Why Monday.com?

Monday.com’s API allows you to:

• Retrieve project boards, tasks, and user info.
• Create or update items.
• Automate workflows.

This makes it ideal for displaying project status, task lists, or dashboards on your website.

Fetching Monday.com Data in Astro

You can fetch data from Monday.com using Astro’s server-side support during static generation.

Example fetching Monday.com boards at build time:

/src/utils/mondayApi.jsexportasyncfunctionfetchMondayBoards(apiKey) { const response = awaitfetch('https://api.monday.com/v2', { method: 'POST', headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', Authorization: apiKey, }, body: JSON.stringify({ query: ` query { boards { id name items { id name column_values { text id } } } } `, }), }); const data = await response.json(); return data.data.boards; }

In your Astro page, you can call this function in the frontmatter:

--- import { fetchMondayBoards } from '../utils/mondayApi.js'; const boards = await fetchMondayBoards(import.meta.env.MONDAY_API_KEY); --- <h1>Monday.com Project Boards</h1> {boards.map(board => ( <section key={board.id}> <h2>{board.name}</h2> <ul> {board.items.map(item => ( <li key={item.id}> {item.name} - {item.column_values.map(col => col.text).join(', ')} </li> ))} </ul> </section> ))}

This example demonstrates fetching Monday.com data at build time, generating fully static HTML that updates on each build. This is perfect for public-facing dashboards or project overviews that don’t require live updates every second.

Client-Side API Calls (Dynamic)

If you want to fetch Monday.com data client-side (e.g., user-specific or frequently updating data), you can build a React or Svelte component in Astro and hydrate it on the client:

import { useState, useEffect } from'react'; exportdefaultfunctionMondayDashboard() { const [boards, setBoards] = useState([]); useEffect(() => { asyncfunctiongetBoards() { const res = awaitfetch('/api/monday-boards'); // Your own serverless API proxyconst data = await res.json(); setBoards(data); } getBoards(); }, []); return ( <div> <h1>Monday Boards</h1> {boards.length === 0 ? ( <p>Loading...</p> ) : ( boards.map(board => ( <divkey={board.id}> <h2>{board.name}</h2> <ul> {board.items.map(item => ( <likey={item.id}>{item.name}</li> ))} </ul> </div> )) )} </div> ); }

You can add this component inside your Astro project with client:load or client:idle to hydrate it on demand.

Other Learnings & Tips from Our Experience

Using Tailwind CSS with Astro

Tailwind CSS works great with Astro out of the box. You can configure Tailwind in your Astro project and style components consistently. For example, the contact forms or landing pages you build can use Tailwind’s utility classes for rapid styling.

Working with Forms in Astro

One issue I did have was with forms. Because 11ty is purely static, it creates pure HTML forms with worked really well with Netlify forms. Really simple, and really simple to automate different processes using tools like Zapier. Astro has a slightly different build process and because it us not purely static, Netlify struggled to picked up it's forms. There is a workaround of creating a copy of your forms as a static form in the public folder for netlify to pick up - but this felt unwieldy and not conducive to future proofing. Luckily, serverside functions are easy to setup in Netlify, so I went with this method instead.

Routing

Astro uses a file-based routing system similar to Next.js, but its primary focus is static sites. It’s less opinionated about API routes, so for complex backend logic or API proxies, you typically run a separate server or serverless functions.

Summary & When to Choose Astro

Astro is a fantastic choice when:

• You want fast, SEO-friendly static sites with modern UI.
• You want to use multiple frontend frameworks in one project.
• You want to ship minimal JavaScript and optimize performance.
• You want simple Markdown + component content authoring.
• You want to integrate APIs (like Monday.com) and generate static or dynamic content efficiently.

It’s less suited when you need a full React app with complex SSR or API routes integrated tightly, or global context/state storage, where Next.js may be a better fit.

Compared to 11ty, Astro offers richer interactivity with multiple frontend frameworks and a smoother developer experience for modern JavaScript users.

Final Thoughts

Astro is shaping the future of web development with its innovative approach to minimal JavaScript shipping and multi-framework support. Whether you're building a marketing site, blog, or a small dashboard, Astro gives you the power and flexibility to create fast, modern websites that delight users and developers alike.

If you haven’t tried Astro yet, it’s definitely worth exploring. And with integrations like Monday.com, you can bring dynamic project data directly to your website in a simple, elegant way.