Why We Chose Astro Over WordPress for Our Law Firm Website

When I decided to rebuild www.bourne.law from the ground up, I faced a critical question: stick with WordPress (the safe, familiar choice) or bet on modern JAMstack architecture with Astro? So what the heck is Astro, and why did we choose it over WordPress?

I have to confess, I strongly disliked WordPress after years of dealing with slow load times, plugin conflicts, security issues, and a clunky developer experience.

Well… the Astro framework is completely different way to build websites that focuses on performance, developer experience, and content-first architecture. The advantages for me were nummerous:

• Performance: Sub-second page loads vs 3-5 seconds on WordPress
• Content Scale: 186 MDX pages with type-safe content collections
• Zero Plugin Hell: No plugin compatibility issues. A common wordpress problem.
• Perfect SEO: Static HTML, instant indexing, superior Core Web Vitals
• Hosting Cost: $0-20/month on Netlify (vs $50-200/month WordPress hosting)
• Security: No PHP, no database, no attack surface. Our prior wordpress site was hacked.

By default Astro ships zero JavaScript to the browser, resulting in blazing fast load times. You only add interactivity where needed with “islands” of React/Vue/Svelte components. This architecture is perfect for content-heavy law firm sites that need speed and SEO. By default, Astro sites are static HTML, making them instantly crawlable by Google with no render-blocking resources.

Why most firms are “stuck on WordPress”

Most law‑firm marketing agencies have 100% of their internal processes, plugins, and junior dev training built around WordPress. Replatforming their whole workflow to Astro would be a massive effort for… very little perceived upside to them. Almost nobody in the legal marketing space has builds on Astro yet. It’s just easier for them to keep selling WordPress sites. We did find a few law firms using Astro. By way of example:

• Awad Law P.C.
• Mordecai Lawy

But if you are considering Astro for your law firm, you’re looking at the same website technology stack as some of the most cutting-edge tech companies in the world like Microsoft, Cloudflare, and Visa. Most law firms are stuck on WordPress because because migrating to a modern framework like Astro would be a massive project (moving over years of content to a new platform). But if you are building a from scratch in 2025, you owe it to yourself to at least consider the modern wordpress alternatives for law firms.

Here is why I chose Astro over WordPress for Bourne Law Firm:

1. Performance Was Non-Negotiable

Google’s Core Web Vitals became a ranking factor in 2021. Our competitors’ WordPress sites were loading in 3-5 seconds. That’s an eternity in today’s mobile-first world where 53% of users abandon sites that take over 3 seconds to load. Client acquisition via organic search is critical for us, so performance was a must-have. If your website is slow, potential clients will back out of your site and go to a competitor.

We needed sub-second page loads. WordPress with page builders, security plugins, caching plugins, SEO plugins, and form plugins couldn’t deliver that consistently.

2. Content Marketing Required Scale

Our strategy called for 180+ in-depth articles covering personal injury law, workers’ compensation, and legal resources for attorneys. Each article needed:

• Custom MDX components for legal citations
• Interactive elements (calculators, accordions)
• Proper schema markup for rich snippets
• Consistent formatting across hundreds of pages

WordPress’s block editor couldn’t give us the type safety and consistency we needed at scale. One plugin update could break 50 articles overnight.

3. Developer Experience Matters

As an attorney who codes, I wanted a a site that was easy to manage and infinetly customizable. WordPress’s mix of PHP, MySQL, and jQuery felt increasingly dated. We wanted:

• Modern TypeScript for type safety
• Component-based architecture (React)
• Git-based workflow (not clicking buttons in wp-admin)

These aren’t just developer preferences—they directly impact iteration speed, bug frequency, and long-term maintainability. Even though the up front costs were higher, the long term maintence is cheaper and easier.

4. Islands Architecture: The Best of Both Worlds

Astro’s killer feature is “islands architecture.” By default, it ships zero JavaScript to the browser. Your site is pure HTML and CSS—blazing fast. But when you need interactivity (like our workers’ comp calculator or contact forms), you add React/Vue/Svelte components exactly where needed. Those “islands” of interactivity load independently, without bloating the entire site.

5. Content Collections: Type-Safe Content at Scale

Astro’s content collections feature is like having a custom CMS built specifically for your content structure. We defined our schema once:

const blogCollection = defineCollection({
  type: 'content',
  schema: z.object({
    title: z.string().max(60),
    description: z.string().max(160),
    pubDate: z.date(),
    author: z.string(),
    cover: z.string(),
    tags: z.array(z.string()),
  }),
});

Now TypeScript yells at us if we forget required fields or make mistakes. No more broken pages from malformed metadata. No more “Whoops, forgot to add a featured image to 20 articles.” This level of type safety simply doesn’t exist in WordPress’s world of freeform custom fields and ACF.

So if you are not a tech person, what does this mean for you?

It means your developer can hook up a headless CMS like Contentful, Sanity, or even a Google Sheet as the content source. Creating new articles and blog posts is as easy as filling out a form (and can feel very similair to using wordpress for the law firm users). Because Astro allows you to use any headless CMS, you are not locked into a single solution. And your content is managed separately from the website code. You handle the content, and your developer handles the website.

The Tech Stack We Built

Here’s what our production law firm website runs on:

Total monthly cost: $0 (Netlify free tier handles our traffic easily).

Compare that to WordPress:

• Managed WordPress hosting: $50-200/month
• Premium theme: $60-300 one-time
• Essential plugins: $200-500/year
• Security monitoring: $100-300/year
• Developer maintenance: $1,000-3,000/year

When WordPress Makes More Sense

Astro was right for us, but WordPress might be right for you if:

• You’re non-technical and need a DIY website without hiring developers
• You want plugins for everything (SEO, forms, booking, memberships)
• You have existing WordPress infrastructure and no compelling reason to migrate
• Your content needs are simple (20-30 pages, basic blog)

WordPress is a proven, battle-tested platform. Don’t migrate just because it’s trendy.

Our Recommendation: Choose Based on Your Needs

After building a production law firm site on Astro, here’s our honest take:

Choose Astro if you:

• Have developer resources (in-house or contracted)
• Compete in saturated markets where performance matters
• Plan to publish 50+ content pieces (content collections shine at scale)
• Want modern development experience and tooling
• Value performance and SEO above ease even though initial development is more expensive

Final Thoughts: Worth the Effort?

Migrating to Astro was one of the best technical decisions we’ve made. Our site is:

• Faster than 99% of competitor sites
• Cheaper to host than WordPress
• More enjoyable to develop on
• Better positioned for SEO success

But most importantly, the Astro Framework can scale effortlessly as we grow. We can add new content types, interactive tools, and features without worrying about plugin conflicts or performance hits. Building on Wordpress is a lot like building with lego blocks that don’t always fit together. Building with Astro is like building with custom machined parts that fit perfectly.