Astro is a modern web development framework for building fast, efficient websites and web applications. It stands out for its unique approach to rendering and serving web content, focusing on performance and developer experience. Here are some key features and concepts associated with Astro: 1. **Component-Based Architecture**: Astro allows developers to write UI components using popular frontend frameworks like React, Vue, Svelte, and Preact, or even just plain HTML and JavaScript. This flexibility lets developers use the tools and libraries they are most comfortable with, all within the same project. 2. **Partial Hydration**: One of Astro's hallmark features is its partial hydration system. Astro can send the client a fully static site, hydrating only the components that need interactivity. This approach significantly reduces the amount of JavaScript sent to the browser, improving load times and overall performance. 3. **Built-in Optimization**: Astro includes several built-in optimizations, such as automatic image optimization, lazy-loading, and CSS and JavaScript minification. These features help ensure that sites built with Astro are fast and efficient without requiring much manual optimization work from developers. 4. **Island Architecture**: Closely related to partial hydration, Astro's "island architecture" concept refers to building a website as a series of independent, interactive components (islands) on an otherwise static page. This strategy allows for more efficient, targeted hydration and interaction, further enhancing performance. 5. **SEO-Friendly**: Astro generates static HTML by default, making it inherently SEO-friendly. The framework ensures that content is easily crawlable and indexable by search engines, which can help improve a site's visibility and ranking. 6. **Developer Experience**: Astro strongly emphasizes developer experience, with features like fast build times, an intuitive templating syntax, and comprehensive documentation. The framework aims to make web development more enjoyable and productive without sacrificing performance or scalability. See: [Astro Web Framework](https://astro.build/) **Declaration:** This content is [[human-made and ai-assisted]].