Astro vs WordPress for small business: which one to build on
Astro vs WordPress for small business comes down to who edits the site and how often. For a business whose website is a handful of pages that change once a month or less, Astro is usually the better choice: it is faster, it can be hosted for free, and there is nothing to patch. Choose WordPress when several non-technical people publish every week, or when the site needs plugins such as a shop, bookings or memberships. If you want an editor without WordPress, EmDash sits in between. We build all three, so this guide has no platform to sell you.
Astro vs WordPress for small business, decision by decision
| Question | Astro | WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Who edits the site | A developer, or someone comfortable editing files (unless you add a CMS) | Anyone, in the WordPress admin |
| How often content changes | Monthly or less | Weekly or daily, by several people |
| Shop, bookings, memberships | Link out to a service (Stripe, Resy, a booking tool) | Plugins: WooCommerce, booking and membership plugins |
| What runs on the server | Nothing: plain HTML, CSS and a little JavaScript | PHP and a MySQL database on every uncached request |
| Upkeep | Almost none once it is live | Core, theme and plugin updates, plus backups |
| Hosting | Static hosting, often free (sources below) | PHP hosting, a monthly cost that depends on the host |
| Speed | Fast by default: pages are built ahead of time | Depends on the theme, plugins and caching you set up |
| SEO | Full control of every tag; nothing extra to install | Good with an SEO plugin; easier for non-developers to edit |
Read the table row by row: if most of your answers land in the WordPress column, take that as the answer, even if Astro wins on speed.
When not to choose Astro
- Your staff publish often and won’t touch code. A plain Astro site stores content in files. Someone has to edit them, or you add a CMS, and at that point compare the cost with WordPress.
- You sell many products online. A catalogue with stock, variants, coupons and shipping rules is what WooCommerce and hosted shops are built for. Astro can sell a few items through Stripe links; it is not a store engine.
- The business runs on a plugin. Memberships, courses, booking calendars with payments: if a WordPress plugin already does it, rebuilding it costs more than the hosting you would save.
- Your current WordPress site works. Migrating is a project with its own risks (we describe the ones we hit on our EmDash migration page). Speed problems on WordPress are often fixed with a lighter theme and caching.
EmDash: an editor without WordPress
EmDash is an open-source CMS built on Astro and run on Cloudflare Workers. Editors get an admin for pages, posts, media and SEO fields, like WordPress; the site itself is still Astro. It reached version 1.0 in April 2026, so it has far fewer plugins than WordPress, and a real site needs a paid Cloudflare plan (below). It suits a business that publishes regularly, wants an editor, and has no plugin it cannot live without. It is our main CMS for new builds: see EmDash CMS website development.
What hosting really costs
- Astro on GitHub Pages: $0. This site and our template demos are served from GitHub Pages at no hosting cost. GitHub Pages is available for public repositories on GitHub Free (GitHub Docs). Read its usage limits first: GitHub says Pages is not meant to run an online business or e-commerce site, and sets a soft limit of 100 GB of bandwidth a month (both checked October 31, 2026).
- Astro on Cloudflare: $0 for the static site. Cloudflare serves requests to static assets free and without a limit (Cloudflare Docs, checked October 31, 2026). For a business site this is the free option we would pick.
- EmDash: from $5 a month. The Workers Paid plan has a minimum charge of $5 per month per account (Cloudflare Workers pricing, checked October 31, 2026). The free plan’s database read limit is too low for a public site.
- WordPress: varies by host. WordPress needs PHP and MySQL hosting, and prices range widely by host and plan, so we don’t quote a number here. Add the cost of any premium plugins and of whoever applies the updates.
The domain is a separate yearly cost on every platform, paid to your registrar.
What we would build for common small businesses
- Restaurant: Astro. The menu, hours and reservation link change rarely, and bookings go through a service you already use. Compare our Astro restaurant templates.
- Software product or startup: Astro, with docs and changelog in the same repo. See our Astro SaaS templates.
- Service business that blogs every week: EmDash, or WordPress if the team already knows it.
- Shop with a real catalogue: WordPress with WooCommerce, or a hosted store.
If you want us to build it, our services page lists what we build; if you want to start from a design, browse the template catalogue.