Next.js vs Astro: which one should your business site use?

en 2026-09-23 6 min read

If your site is mostly pages people read, Astro is the better choice. If it needs accounts, a dashboard or payments, Next.js is. The price barely moves either way: 4 to 7 pages with a CMS is EUR 1.500 to 3.500 as step 03 whichever of the two it is built in, and a single-page landing is EUR 600 to 900 in both.

The framework is one of the last decisions on a project, not the first. It gets asked first because it is the one technical question a non-technical buyer can hold on to. What a site costs, and whether it earns anything back, is set by scope, content and design, all settled before anyone opens a code editor.

What each one is built for

Astro builds your pages into HTML ahead of time and sends no JavaScript to the browser unless you ask for it on a specific component. That suits a site made of service pages, a blog, case studies and a contact form: pages that look the same for every visitor. When one part of a page does need to react, a price calculator or a filterable list, Astro loads code for that part alone and leaves the rest as plain HTML.

Next.js is a React framework with a server behind it. It is built for pages that differ per visitor: a logged-in area, a dashboard reading live data, a saved basket, your own API sitting behind the site. It builds a brochure site perfectly well, and we do that, but on a small content site you are carrying machinery you never switch on.

Which one fits what you need

Why the framework hardly changes the price

A quote is built from scope: how many pages, how much of the design is drawn from scratch, whether an editor needs a CMS behind it, and whether anything has to be built rather than laid out. Both tools take the same design and produce the same pages, deploy the same way, and take a comparable amount of work to do properly.

What does change the price is crossing from one step to the next. Four to seven pages with a CMS, service pages and a contact or booking flow is step 03, EUR 1.500 to 3.500. Include a login, a dashboard, an API, a CRM connection, payments or a chatbot in a new build and it is step 04, EUR 3.500 to 7.500, because there is now software to design, secure and test rather than pages to lay out. The full ladder sits on our packages page.

Where Astro genuinely wins

• A page with nothing interactive on it ships as HTML and CSS. There is no framework to start up in the visitor's browser before the page works, and nothing to break on an old phone.
• Editing stays simple. Markdown files, content collections or a headless CMS all sit comfortably behind it.
• Less to maintain over the years. A small marketing site built in Next.js still carries a React application you will be upgrading long after the copy stopped changing.
• You do not give up interactivity to get any of this. Astro will run a React, Vue or Svelte component on the one page that needs it.

If you want a site that presents a business, takes enquiries and ranks, that is the whole argument. For that kind of site, Astro is the better fit unless something on the step 04 list is genuinely coming.

Where Next.js earns its place

• Anything that changes per visitor: accounts, saved data, a client portal, an admin screen.
• Payments and checkout, which are step 04 work whichever framework is underneath.
• One codebase for the marketing site and the product, so the two never drift apart visually.
• A portal you already know is coming. If a customer login is decided for next year, start in Next.js. If it is a vague maybe, it is not a reason.

How we make that call is set out on design and engineering, and the Next.js side of it on our Next.js page.

How the build runs, and how long

Scope comes first, in a conversation about what the site has to do and who has to edit it. A fixed quote follows the scoping, never before it, because a number given before anyone knows the page count is a guess wearing a price tag.

Then: structure and copy, design, build, your review, launch. The step sets the timeline. A single-page landing is 1 to 2 weeks. A mini-site of 2 to 3 pages is 2 to 3 weeks. A step 03 business website is 3 to 6 weeks. A step 04 build with a login, dashboard or payments is 6 to 12 weeks. A custom platform starts from EUR 7.500 and gets its shape out of discovery.

Content is the part that waits on you. Text, photos and the real detail of your services have to come from inside your business, and a build cannot finish around a placeholder.

When to spend less

If your site is a handful of pages and nothing on it is interactive, neither framework is the interesting question. A single-page landing at EUR 600 to 900, or a mini-site at EUR 900 to 1.500, does the job, and either tool builds it.

If you already have a site that brings enquiries in, do not rebuild it for a framework. A visitor cannot tell what your site was built in. If the real problem is that too few people find you, an SEO foundation is a one-off at EUR 450 to 750 and covers Search Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links and a 3 to 6 month plan. That is a better use of the money than a rebuild.

And if you are not yet sure the offer works, put a landing page up, send traffic at it, and come back when you know what the site must say.

Questions buyers ask

Is one of them cheaper to build in?

Not meaningfully. The same design, the same page count and the same CMS take a similar amount of work in both. If two quotes differ a lot and the framework is the headline difference, look again at the scope, because that is what actually moved.

Can I start in Astro and move to Next.js later?

Yes, and it is not a disaster. The design, the content and the CMS carry over; the page layer changes. If a portal or a checkout is already decided, start in Next.js. If it is a someday idea, build the content site you need now.

Does Google care which one I use?

No. What it sees is the HTML that arrives, how quickly it arrives, and whether the content is there without running JavaScript. Astro gives you that by default. Next.js gives you that when it renders on the server, which is how we set it up.

Who owns what when it is finished?

You do. The code, the repository and the database are yours, and you can hand the project to another developer without asking us. We can host the site as well, and that gets agreed per project rather than assumed.

What does it cost after launch?

Care is EUR 100 to 300 a month and covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes. It is deliberately not a redesign and not new features; those get their own quote. If you want the site to keep gaining search traffic, SEO growth is EUR 500 to 800 a month for technical and on-page work, service and location pages, internal links and reporting.

Describe what the site has to do and we will tell you which step it lands in and which of the two we would build it in. Tell us what you have in mind.