My new portfolio built with Astro

Finally Live! 🚀

Welcome to my new digital space. After evaluating several technologies like Next.js, pure React, or simple static generators, I decided to go all-in on Astro.

The goal was simple: I wanted a portfolio that was blazing fast, easy to maintain, and SEO-optimized.

The Tech Stack

To build this project, I didn’t just stop at the framework; I built a modern ecosystem:

• Astro 5.0: The beating heart of the site.
• Tailwind CSS: For rapid, responsive, and clean styling.
• TypeScript: To ensure code robustness and prevent bugs.
• Netlify: For hosting and automated CI/CD.

Why Astro?

Astro isn’t your typical JavaScript framework. It has a unique approach that made all the difference for this project:

1. Zero JavaScript by Default

Unlike Single Page Applications (SPAs) that load huge JS bundles, Astro ships only HTML and CSS to the browser. JavaScript is loaded only when strictly necessary (e.g., for the mobile menu or contact form).

Less JavaScript means faster load times and happier users.

2. Islands Architecture

This is the real magic. I can have a completely static page and “hydrate” only small islands of interactivity.

Here is an example of how I handle conditional logic directly in the component frontmatter:

---
// Example of server-side logic in Astro
const { title, lang } = Astro.props;
const isEnglish = lang === 'en';

const formattedDate = new Date().toLocaleDateString(
  isEnglish ? 'en-US' : 'it-IT', 
  { year: 'numeric', month: 'long' }
);
---

<h1>{title}</h1>
<p>{isEnglish ? 'Published on' : 'Pubblicato il'}: {formattedDate}</p>

This pattern, repeated across components, lets me handle localization without shipping a client-side i18n framework: all the logic runs at build time, on the server, and the browser only ever receives ready-made HTML.

Multilingual Setup (i18n)

The site is available in Italian (no prefix, default locale) and English (with an /en prefix), with “twin” URLs between the two languages linked via hreflang. It’s the same approach I documented in more detail in my article on building multilingual websites with i18n and Astro.

Technical SEO and Structured Data

Beyond performance, I also paid close attention to technical SEO: JSON-LD markup where the Person, Organization, and WebSite entities are linked via @id instead of being duplicated, a sitemap with per-page priority and changefreq values, and a /llms-full.json endpoint built for generative search engines (GEO). I walked through this exact pattern in my guide on Schema Markup and JSON-LD structured data in Astro.

Performance as a Priority

The result of these architectural choices shows up in the numbers: Lighthouse scores close to 100 across Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO, without chasing last-minute optimizations. If you’re curious about the technical reasoning behind Core Web Vitals, I wrote a dedicated guide on technical SEO and Core Web Vitals optimization.

About Me

I’ve been a freelance developer since 2021, based in Civitanova Marche, Italy. I’m completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science (L-31) at the University of Camerino, and I hold an IT Technical High School Diploma from IIS “E. Mattei” in Recanati with a 94/100 grade, along with ICDL and COMAU Industrial Robotics certifications. This portfolio is also where I collect everything I learn along the way — if you have a project in mind or just want to talk about Astro, feel free to reach out through the contact form on this site.