Unironically have been migrating my static pages (from Nextjs and Eleventy) to plain HTML and love it.
Of course depends on your use case if that is feasible.
First, it doesn't have any provisions for code reuse. So, if you have multiple pages that use the same header, same footer, or same navigation menu, your options are either to copy-paste it (gross), or to build the final html out of smaller pieces, at which point you've reinvented either a static site generator or a web server.
Second, if you write long stretches of text, the html markup can get in the way, as opposed to unobtrusiveness of something like markdown.
Yea I think I’ll write my own static generator that just combines 3 templates for header/body/footer and converts markdown from the body.
Should be fun project.
I’m tired of the constant update pressure from existing solutions and I only need something dead simple.
> at which point you've reinvented either a static site generator ...
It doesn't have to be Astro though. You can build something super simple that just includes the header, footer, and nav. Leaving most of the site as plain HTML.
Same, and I was starting to feel kind of strange doing anything in html/php in 2026 but then I looked at everything else and realized I'd have to start from scratch again. Plain ol' HTML has worked great.
I recently rebuilt my site with Parcel + React Server Components. RSC are designed to solve many of the same problems that Astro does. And Parcel is “just” a bundler and not a framework, so it has less magic and gives you more control.
I experimented a lot with bootstrapping React projects this past fall, and Astro was by far the least painful to use. Notably, it was the least goofy of all of the React starter kits to use for server API development.
Well, there's this other project that recently secured funding from a company that has a proven track record of supporting great open-source projects like Astro, TanStack, and Hono without trying to capture or lock anything down.
Disliked the templating solutions, the messy documentation, the loss in momentum, and liked a lot of the stuff (especially the tooling and principles) in astro.
Also strongly disliked how political eleventy got.
I just wanted a website, not a an internal debate about what I am potentially being absorbed into. I can vote, and spend money on donations, I don't need to enact change through my tech stack.
HTML.
Unironically have been migrating my static pages (from Nextjs and Eleventy) to plain HTML and love it. Of course depends on your use case if that is feasible.
Plain html has two things going against it.
First, it doesn't have any provisions for code reuse. So, if you have multiple pages that use the same header, same footer, or same navigation menu, your options are either to copy-paste it (gross), or to build the final html out of smaller pieces, at which point you've reinvented either a static site generator or a web server.
Second, if you write long stretches of text, the html markup can get in the way, as opposed to unobtrusiveness of something like markdown.
Yea I think I’ll write my own static generator that just combines 3 templates for header/body/footer and converts markdown from the body. Should be fun project.
I’m tired of the constant update pressure from existing solutions and I only need something dead simple.
> at which point you've reinvented either a static site generator ...
It doesn't have to be Astro though. You can build something super simple that just includes the header, footer, and nav. Leaving most of the site as plain HTML.
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Or I don't know, use WebComponents.
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Same, and I was starting to feel kind of strange doing anything in html/php in 2026 but then I looked at everything else and realized I'd have to start from scratch again. Plain ol' HTML has worked great.
I recently rebuilt my site with Parcel + React Server Components. RSC are designed to solve many of the same problems that Astro does. And Parcel is “just” a bundler and not a framework, so it has less magic and gives you more control.
https://micahcantor.com/blog/rsc-rewrite.html
I experimented a lot with bootstrapping React projects this past fall, and Astro was by far the least painful to use. Notably, it was the least goofy of all of the React starter kits to use for server API development.
Mastering HTML, CSS and vanilajs.
Then one is pretty much safe from framework tides.
https://lume.land/ a good, straightforward SSG.
There's one other I've seen recently that looked good but I have misplaced the link
https://mastrojs.github.io/ was the one I couldn't recall.
Well, there's this other project that recently secured funding from a company that has a proven track record of supporting great open-source projects like Astro, TanStack, and Hono without trying to capture or lock anything down.
There's even an article about it somewhere.
Eleventy, of course :-)
But why are you looking for alternatives already?
Dropped eleventy recently.
Disliked the templating solutions, the messy documentation, the loss in momentum, and liked a lot of the stuff (especially the tooling and principles) in astro.
Also strongly disliked how political eleventy got.
I just wanted a website, not a an internal debate about what I am potentially being absorbed into. I can vote, and spend money on donations, I don't need to enact change through my tech stack.
What are you referring to re: it getting political?
I'm not! Just preparing myself for the worst-case scenario and creating some bookmarks meanwhile.
Vite. https://codeberg.org/createthirdplaces/frontend/src/branch/m...