Why Astro

I finally managed to install Pagefind on this website. It (a.k.a. Claude) takes a while to install and troubleshoot since I am relatively new in Astro, Typescript, and React. Can’t imagine how much longer time it will take to troubleshoot without GenAI!

Back to talking about why Astro: I actually tried static sites generator before picking Astro with Starfolio (theme of this site). Roughly, I tried Jekyll (Just the Docs), Zential, and Hugo (Hextra). I found the former two are mainly for documentation sites, which does to fit my use case. My requirements are simple: CV-style portfolio and blog. Hugo is much better than the former two, and actually I almost hosted a Hextra instance as my personal website. However, I later found that tho Astro has a steeper learning curve, it just provides more. The MDX support is a huge plus that allow a lot of integrations and possibilities. Aesthetic-wise, Astro is a great choice. I also take hosting this opportunity to learn React and Typescript.

In terms of blogging, I have used Medium, and was thinking about Substack. While I think these are great platforms, I now prefer to write in markdown syntax, with different extensions like code blocks, interactive components. These features fit my needs as in covering technical topics.

Actually, Notion is a real competitor, as it fits a lot of my requirements, such as writing in markdown syntax and having a lot of integrations. One benefits of Notion over Astro is no hosting needed. However, hosting on Astro allows me to have more control over the content, and good for migration if needed.