Brain Decisions
2026-07-17
D002: Tech stack: Astro + React islands on Vercel
Context: Need elite performance, great SEO, multilingual routing, and a few rich interactive surfaces. Guided by D001 - Site as Proof Principle.
Options considered:
- Next.js 16, familiar, powerful, great if this becomes an app; but heavier JS baseline → harder to hit a flawless Lighthouse on a content site.
- Astro 5, zero JS by default, first-class i18n, static-first; hydrate only interactive islands.
Decision: Astro + React islands, on Vercel. Next.js documented as the alternative.
Why: A portfolio is ~90% content. Astro ships the content as static HTML and hydrates only the islands (WebGL Hero, Contact Form, Custom Analytics, Knowledge Graph). "I chose Astro because the workload is content-led" is itself the product-thinking answer.
Trade-offs: less familiar than Next for Saif; if it grows into a full app later, revisit. Enables the perf targets in Design System and Roadmap Phase 0.