20 Types of Websites You Can Build With Astro

Astro is built for websites that are mostly things people read. That covers more than you’d think. Here are 20 kinds of sites it’s good at, with what each one needs, and a few it isn’t right for.

Simple sites

1. A personal site. Who you are, what you do, how to reach you. One page. The free course builds this.
2. A portfolio. Your work, with pictures. Astro’s image handling makes big photos fast. How to add images.
3. A resume site. A page that’s nicer than a PDF and easier to update.
4. A small business site. Services, hours, a map, a contact form. Fast loading matters here, because most visitors are on phones.
5. A restaurant or shop site. Menu, hours, address. Change the menu by editing a text file.
6. An event or wedding site. Dates, details, an RSVP form. Exists for a few months, costs nothing.
7. A landing page. One product, one message, one button. Astro’s speed helps conversions.

Content sites

8. A blog. Astro’s home turf. Posts are Markdown files in a folder. How to add a blog.
9. A newsletter archive. Every issue as a page, with a sign-up form. How to start a newsletter.
10. A magazine or news site. Many authors, categories, featured stories. Add a CMS like EmDash so writers don’t need to touch code.
11. A recipe site. Structured data for recipes, fast pages, and no ads blocking the recipe if you choose.
12. A documentation site. Astro’s Starlight theme does this out of the box, with search and a sidebar. Many big open-source projects use it.
13. A knowledge base or help center. Same as docs, pointed at customers.
14. An online course. Lessons as pages, a progress tracker, like our own training. Add a payment service to sell it.
15. A glossary or wiki. Many short pages that link to each other. Ours has 80 terms.

Sites that show things

16. A photography site. Galleries that load fast thanks to automatic image resizing.
17. A podcast site. Episodes as pages, an RSS feed Astro can generate, a player on each page.
18. A directory. A list of people, places or tools, each with its own page. Generate hundreds of pages from one data file.
19. A changelog or status page. Short dated entries. A static page is perfect when the thing it reports on is down.

Sites that sell

20. A small store. A few products with a payment button from Stripe, Lemon Squeezy or Snipcart. For a large catalogue with carts and accounts, Astro works as the front of Shopify or another commerce service, and that’s a bigger project.

What Astro isn’t right for

• A social network or community with logins everywhere. Each person sees a different page. Astro can render on a server, but a framework built around that is a better fit.
• A real-time dashboard. Numbers that change every second want an app framework.
• A large store on your own. Possible with headless commerce, but a beginner should start with Shopify or a hosted store and come back to Astro for the marketing site.

Everything else on this list, Astro does well, for about $10 a year.

Where to go next

• Is Astro right for me? Five questions, an honest answer.
• 12 big names using Astro to see these types in the wild.
• Start the free course and build the first one this weekend.

Frequently asked questions

What is Astro not good for?

Apps where most of the page changes for each logged-in user, like a social network or a dashboard. Astro can do it with server rendering, but a framework built for apps fits better.

Can I sell things with Astro?

Yes. For a few products, a payment button from Stripe, Lemon Squeezy or Snipcart is enough. For a full store, Shopify's headless setup works with Astro, and it's a bigger project.

Do I need a CMS?

Only if people who don't code will edit the site. Then add EmDash or another CMS. For a site you edit yourself, Markdown files are simpler.