The modern frontend framework for content-driven websites. Static-first, near-zero JavaScript, and very kind to slow Chinese mobile networks.
Backed by Cloudflare since January 2026. We build Astro and WordPress, so we can be honest about which one fits.
Lighthouse score on a typical Astro site, no manual tuning
Sitepins, Astro in 2026
of Astro sites pass Core Web Vitals “Good” thresholds
Versus 38% on WordPress
faster LCP versus a comparable WordPress site, same Chinese host
ChinaWebFoundry measurements
Why It Works
Astro builds pages as static HTML and ships them to a CDN. No PHP, no database, JavaScript only where it’s actually needed. The technical name is Islands Architecture, and Astro pioneered it.
In China that shape is exactly right. Less data over crowded mobile networks, fewer things that can quietly break behind the Firewall, and Baidu and the Chinese AI engines can crawl the content without a JavaScript runtime in the way.
Plain files, in Git →
Markdown content, type-safe Content Collections and Astro components live in version control. The build produces static HTML, ready for a Chinese CDN.
What It Is For
Purpose-built for content-driven sites. Within that category, hard to beat right now.
Brand sites, product pages, landing pages, campaign microsites. Page speed has to be excellent and content is updated weekly or less. This is what Astro was designed for, and where the performance advantage shows up most clearly.
Starlight, Astro’s own docs framework, is the strongest in the ecosystem. For technical docs, knowledge bases and resource centres in China, it keeps content fast to load and navigation clean to follow.
Content Collections give you type-safe Markdown and MDX with build-time validation. The workflow is faster than anything we have used on WordPress, and the output is dramatically lighter on Chinese mobile networks.
Astro has built-in i18n routing. Running Chinese alongside English, French, German or Japanese is straightforward. We have shipped Astro sites with ten or more languages without trouble.
When paid media depends on landing page speed, or your SEO depends on Baidu indexing your content cleanly, Astro is the framework that gets you there with the least fight. Sub-second loads on a mid-range Chinese phone.
Static HTML has no database to attack, no PHP to exploit, no admin login to brute-force. For brands that have been hacked before, or that operate in regulated industries where security is a board-level concern, the reduced attack surface is a real argument.
When It Isn’t the Right Call
We build both, so we can be honest about which fits. WordPress is still the right answer for editorial-led sites, e-commerce at scale and plugin-driven workflows.
Pick Astro
Pick WordPress
When in doubt, Strategy and Audit is where the conversation usually starts.
What Has to Change
Astro is closer to China-ready out of the box than most stacks. A handful of defaults still need to be tuned before the site performs properly on the mainland.
Astro starters often pull from Google Fonts. We disable the loader and self-host the fonts directly, or swap in Chinese-compatible alternatives that ship Latin and CJK glyphs in one file.
Some Astro themes reference Western CDNs (jsdelivr, unpkg) for icons or libraries. We reroute everything through a Chinese CDN or bundle assets into the build. Images get served from Aliyun OSS or Tencent COS in modern formats.
Anything that pings a blocked service is removed or replaced. Maps, fonts, analytics, captchas and embeds each get a Chinese-compatible swap during the build, before the static output ever ships.
When the editorial team needs a visual interface, we wire up Storyblok, Sanity, Decap or headless WordPress. The CMS lives outside China, content syncs at build time, and the static site lives on a mainland server.
Forms run as Astro Islands. Google reCAPTCHA becomes a Chinese captcha. Google Maps becomes Baidu Map or Amap. The interactive bits keep working without external dependencies.
Vercel Analytics or Plausible gets replaced with Baidu Tongji or a self-hosted tool. Same dashboards your team needs, none of the blocked endpoints.
Mainland Chinese server, valid ICP filing on the domain. Aliyun, Tencent Cloud or Huawei Cloud, fronted by a Chinese CDN. Cloudflare’s own CDN doesn’t perform well on the mainland, so we don’t deploy there.
The build runs outside China on a CI pipeline (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI). Static output gets pushed to the Chinese host. Push to main and the site updates within a few minutes.
No database, no PHP runtime, no admin login. Security work shifts to the build pipeline and the Chinese cloud edge instead of a runtime that has to be patched every week.
Static HTML on a mainland CDN is hard to beat. We target sub-second first meaningful paint on a mid-range Chinese phone, and we usually hit it.
Baidu has different crawling rules to Google, so we configure proper metadata, set up Baidu Webmaster Tools, and structure the site so Doubao, Kimi, DeepSeek and Wenxin can read and cite it. Plain files in Git make structured data and llms.txt easy to generate.
Built on the Chinese stack
Mainland-licensed providers, real Chinese-network performance, and the consumer services your audience actually uses.
Hosting
Aliyun
阿里云
Hosting
Tencent Cloud
腾讯云
Hosting
Huawei Cloud
华为云
Search & SEO
Baidu
百度
Auth & messaging
微信
Payments
Alipay
支付宝
Where It Fits
We tell clients this upfront. Every project lands in one of three buckets.
Astro fits
A marketing site with a small product showcase, a contact form or a few interactive widgets is exactly what Astro was designed for. Static pages, fast loads, JavaScript only where it has to be.
WordPress fits better
Thousands of products with a non-technical team managing inventory daily, deep plugin dependencies, builder-led marketing teams. WooCommerce on WordPress is still usually the right call.
Different tool entirely
Logged-in dashboards, real-time collaboration, social areas, anything closer to an application than a website. Past that point, Next.js or Remix is a better fit than Astro.
Past the marketing-site mark, you start fighting the framework instead of working with it. We will tell you when that point is.
Timeline
ICP filing usually sits on the critical path. We start it on day one.
New site
Migration
ICP filing runs in parallel
Twenty business days minimum at the provincial level, sometimes longer. We start the filing on day one so it never blocks launch.
Frequently Asked
If it’s hosted in mainland China, yes. If you host in Hong Kong or on Cloudflare, no, but the site will be measurably slower for mainland users and Baidu will treat it as foreign. For brands serious about the Chinese market, the ICP filing is worth doing.
Depends on how we set it up. With Markdown and Content Collections, content edits go through Git and need a developer or a comfortable technical user. With a headless CMS connected (Storyblok, Sanity, Decap), the editorial team gets a visual interface and updates the site without touching code. We pick the right model based on how the team actually works.
In raw numbers, yes. Astro ships static HTML with near-zero JavaScript, which means lower data transfer, faster parsing and fewer round-trips to a server. We have measured 40 to 60 percent faster Largest Contentful Paint on Astro versus a comparable WordPress site, on the same Chinese host.
Yes, this is one of Astro’s strongest patterns. We have shipped sites using Storyblok, Sanity, Decap and headless WordPress. The CMS lives outside China where editors can work freely without VPN issues, the static frontend lives on a mainland server, content syncs at build time. The editorial team keeps the interface they know and the Chinese audience gets a fast site.
For small to medium catalogues (under five hundred products) Astro pairs well with headless commerce: Shopify Storefront, Snipcart, or Stripe checkout for international payments, plus custom integrations for Alipay and WeChat Pay for Chinese consumers. For large e-commerce with thousands of products and a non-technical team managing daily inventory, WooCommerce on WordPress is still usually the right call.
Astro has built-in i18n routing, which makes Chinese alongside English, French or any other language clean and structured. URLs, hreflang tags and language-specific sitemaps all work out of the box. We have shipped Astro sites with ten or more languages.
Yes, and we do this regularly. Content gets exported from WordPress, restructured into Astro Content Collections or routed through a headless CMS, and the design is rebuilt for the new stack. Typical timeline is four to eight weeks. The result is a faster site with lower running costs, but you do lose the WordPress admin interface unless we keep it as a headless backend.
We host on Aliyun, Tencent Cloud or Huawei Cloud, depending on the project. The build runs outside China on a CI pipeline, the static output gets pushed to the Chinese host, fronted by a mainland CDN. We handle the hosting account, the ICP filing and the deployment pipeline, so your team never has to log into a Chinese hosting panel.
Less than a WordPress site, by a wide margin. There is no database to back up, no plugins to keep updated, no PHP versions to upgrade, no security patches arriving every other week. The framework itself updates a few times a year, dependencies need occasional review, and that’s roughly it. For most marketing sites a quarterly maintenance pass is enough.
It does and it doesn’t. Cloudflare’s deeper investment means Astro is now backed by a thirty-billion-dollar infrastructure company, which is a real trust signal for clients worried about long-term viability. The framework itself stays MIT-licensed and deployable anywhere, including on Chinese cloud providers. Cloudflare’s own CDN doesn’t perform well on the mainland, but Astro sites can still be deployed to Aliyun or Tencent Cloud without any loss of functionality.
Get Started
Starting fresh and want the fastest possible site for the Chinese market? Astro is usually the answer. Already on WordPress and the migration is starting to feel overdue? We can help you make the case and run the project.
