< Back to archive

Jamstacked Issue 53

Astro and RedwoodJS hit 1.0 - here's how they differ

Published: Apr 14, 2022

Your update on all things Jamstack

#​53 — April 14, 2022
✦ web version

This was a big week for two of the latest generation of static site generators (SSG): Astro and RedwoodJS. Each of these tools offers something unique and, as they each reach 1.0, have taken very different paths for their projects.

Astro is a new, framework agnostic SSG that supports partial hydration, meaning Astro will only include JavaScript for dynamic portions of your site or page. This can really optimize your site by not sending lots of bytes down the pipe for a JavaScript framework when it isn't necessary. Astro is supported by the Astro Technology Company that recently announced it secured a seed round.

RedwoodJS is an opinionated React-based framework that is like the Rails equivalent for Jamstack development. RedwoodJS aims to make it easy to scaffold out the frontend and backend of a site, even connecting data, services, and tests automatically for you with minimal configuration. RedwoodJS announced that they will remain independent and open source, supported by a $1M donation from Tom Preston-Werner.

— Brian Rinaldi

↘︎ What's good

RedwoodJS v1.0 Launch
RedwoodJS is a full stack, Rails-like opinionated framework for building Jamstack apps using React. They had a full week of announcements that coincided with the release of their 1.0 release candidate. In addition, Tom Preston-Werner announced he’s committing $1M to RedwoodJS development (while keeping it independent and open-source), as well as a new fund for startups using RedwoodJS.

RedwoodJS

Astro 1.0 Beta Release
Astro’s release week announcements included the new 1.0 beta, with the highlight being support for server-side rendering. They also announced a new themes gallery as well as a new catalog of integrations. You can also read The New Stack’s take on the recent announcements.

Astro

Thoughts on the Jamstack and Content Metrics
Looking at how to collect different metrics about your content (and display them in Eleventy) to help improve your writing.

Raymond Camden

Hugo vs Nuxt.js - A Blog-Off
A comparison of the process of building a new blog using both Hugo and Nuxt.js.

Rory Zauner

✂︎ Tools and Resources

  • nextjs-blog-theme - A customizable blog starter using Next.js v12. Tailwind v3.0 and built-in MDX v1 support.
  • Astro Support in CloudCannon – CloudCannon offers a git-based CMS product that now works with Astro.
  • Edge Functions in Supabase – Supabase, an open source Firebase alternative, now supports serverless function code deployed to the Edge via Deno Deploy.
  • MarkdownSite – A free and open source hosting platform for static sites that supports Hugo, Jekyll or "hand-rolled" static sites.

Moving My Short-Code Redirects To Netlify
How to use Netlify’s redirects to power a vanity short URL service. Similarly, Scott Spence shows a more intricate example built with SvelteKit.

Ben Nadel

Incremental Static Regeneration for Angular
Using the ngx-isr to implement ISR (aka deferred rendering) on an Angular application.

Enea Jahollari

Thank you for reading. — Brian