Astro Islands (aka Component Islands) are a pattern of web architecture pioneered by Astro. The idea of “islands architecture” was first coined by Etsy’s frontend architect Katie Sylor-Miller in 2019, and expanded on in this post by Preact creator Jason Miller.
Astro’s goal is to be accessible to every web developer. Astro was designed to feel familiar and approachable regardless of skill level or past experience with web development.
Astro was designed for building content-rich websites. This includes most marketing sites, publishing sites, documentation sites, blogs, portfolios, and some ecommerce sites.
By contrast, most modern web frameworks are designed for building web applications. These frameworks work best for building more complex, application-like experiences in the browser: logged-in admin dashboards, inboxes, social networks, todo lists, and even native-like applications like Figma and Ping.