Difference between Astro JS vs React JS?



What is React JS?

React is a open-source JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It is developed by Facebook (Meta organization), aims to simplify UI designing and development process. ReactJS uses component based architecture which simplify building small, large scale, or even complex applications. ReactJS provides minimal and solid feature set to kick-start a web application.

Features of React JS

  • Component-based architecture
  • Only Client-side rendering supported.
  • Comparatively slower than Next.js and Astro
  • Also supports development of mobile applications.

What is Astro JS?

Astro is a new JavaScript framework optimized for static site generation, with support for server-side rendering. Astro focuses of optimizing content focused website which are not regularly updated. For example, once a blog page has been written and published, its contents are unlikely to be modified, making it appropriate for serving from static hosting.

Features of Astro

  • Uses Island Architecture to reduce JavaScript load.
  • Highly optimized for static content as no JavaScript is loaded by default.
  • Supports SSG by default, but can also be configured to support SSR
  • Markdown/MDX support
  • Includes optimization for images and other assets

Features Comparison Astro vs React JS

Here is tabular comparison of Astro vs React JS features.

Feature Astro.js React.js
Framework Type Static site generator JavaScript UI library
Rendering SSG by default; supports SSR with adapters Client-side rendering (CSR), SSR, SSG with Next.js
Component Support Supports multiple UI frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, etc.) Uses only React components
Performance Highly optimized for static content; ships zero JS by default Performance depends on hydration and JavaScript bundling
Server-side Support Requires adapters for SSR Requires Next.js or another framework for SSR
Hydration Islands architecture loads JavaScript only where needed Full React hydration by default
State Management No built-in state management (relies on framework components) Uses React hooks, Context API, Redux, etc.
Routing File-based routing (like Next.js) Requires React Router or a framework like Next.js
Bundling & Optimization Optimized for minimal client-side JS; removes unused JavaScript React apps can be optimized with tools like Webpack, Vite
Middleware No built-in middleware support No middleware by default (handled by frameworks like Next.js)
Deployment Works well with static hosts (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare) Requires a hosting service that supports React apps
Best Use Case Content-heavy sites, blogs, documentation Interactive UI designing, SPAs, dashboards

Architecture Comparison Astro vs React JS

Here we made detailed comparison of Astro and Next.js architecture using flowchart.

React JS Architecture

The flowchart below, shows the working of React JS framework. React uses JavaScript-XML (JSX) file to create UI components, which is a combination of HTML and JavaScript code. Then react component combines with CSS to create a virtual DOM in browser.

React JS Architecture

Astro Architecture

The flowchart shows the working of Astro framework. Astro supports any frontend framework for UI code, which then combined with backend code to generate full stack website. The static websites can be hosted on platforms like GitHub, Firebase, and AWS S3, while server-rendered websites are commonly hosted on Vercel, Netlify, or AWS S3.

Astro JS Architecture
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