# Astro 174 Hacker News commenters recommended Astro and 36 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 13 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 2 years (9 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A pleasant, approachable web framework that outputs plain HTML with minimal JavaScript and adds interactivity only where needed; some worry Cloudflare's ownership could push hosting lock-in. ## Why people recommend it - Plain HTML, minimal JavaScript (7 comments): "I have had an excellent experience when not hydrating components at all, and I like their approach significantly more than other SSGs overall." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647130)) "the user experience of Astro's static HTML, css and minimal JS output on Cloudflare edge CDN network is really good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46657400)) "for the vast majority of a content-heavy site you can just use Astro and skip the client-side bulk entirely" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166766)) - Pleasant and easy to learn (6 comments): "Astro is very very pleasant to use, and the escape hatches for when you do need something a bit more heavy hitting feel very well designed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50323488)) "It's the first framework I recommend to web dev beginners, after they have built something with plain HTML and CSS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647939)) "Astro is my favorite framework for static sites. It's hard to describe but it just "makes sense"." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659814)) - Scoped CSS and components (3 comments): "the component can have a style tag in which I can add my own CSS. When building the website Astro will know how to transform the CSS so it only applies to that component" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163139)) "It lets you do exactly that: server-side rendering with HTML templates in component form, with css scoped to the component." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49637854)) "you still get some nice things like scoped CSS, components and being able to use markdown for blog posts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736209)) - Interactivity and frameworks when needed (5 comments): "it also supports React, Solid and a host of others. So transplanting your current tree of components in, adding the React plugin and saying "GO" is likely a fairly straight-forward project." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47363638)) "Astro is very very pleasant to use, and the escape hatches for when you do need something a bit more heavy hitting feel very well designed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50323488)) "It's in that middle ground—focused on primarily static sites but with the ability to still write bits of backend logic as needed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46490614)) ## What people warn about - Cloudflare ownership and lock-in fears (6 comments): "I don't love it being owned by CF and that the goals of the project goes from the best way to deploy it to the best way to deploy it using CF" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46648435)) "Cloudflare can maintain Astro's "framework agnostic" soul while being incentivized to push everyone toward Workers/Pages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46718804)) "by explicitly ignoring a major issue the owners are telling you exactly what they care about" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647117)) - Recent breaking changes frustrate upgrades (3 comments): "The switch to strict HTML compilation is just not cool, and actively prevents upgrading sites which need to deal with remote content that is not written in strict HTML." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822219)) "Switch from widely supported unified/rehype to own rehype-incompatible markdown tooling just for build time speed improvement is quite upsetting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48825874)) "my builds didn't get faster (they actually on average slowed down a bit)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822827)) - Components feel too limited (2 comments): "their components are too limited to make them worth using over just doing everything in react, svelte, or whatever floats your boat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647141)) "I've tried multiple times to come up with usecases where they are worth it, but still haven't found any." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47741812)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Hugo static site generator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hugo.md): 85 recommend - [Jekyll](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jekyll.md): 29 recommend - [Eleventy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/eleventy.md): 22 recommend - [Zensical](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zensical.md): 17 recommend - [Zola](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zola.md): 15 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Astro", https://hackerapproved.com/p/astro/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).