React vs Astro vs Next.js: Which Framework for a Business Website?

The short answer

If your business website is primarily content — pages, blog posts, case studies, a services section — use Astro. If you’re building something that behaves more like an application — user accounts, dashboards, real-time data, complex forms — use Next.js.

And React on its own? It’s not a framework. It’s a UI library. You’ll always need something on top of it, so the real question is which framework wrapping React (or not) fits your needs.

Who this is for

• Business owners comparing quotes from agencies recommending different tech stacks
• Marketing teams wanting to understand why framework choice affects page speed and SEO
• CTOs and technical founders evaluating the right architecture for a company website

Who this isn’t for: If you’re building a SaaS product with complex user interactions, you almost certainly need Next.js (or a similar full-stack framework). This page focuses on business and marketing websites.

Why the framework choice actually matters

Your framework choice directly affects three things your business cares about:

1. Page speed — which affects conversion rates and Google rankings
2. Build cost — how many developer hours it takes to ship
3. Ongoing maintenance — how much it costs to keep running and update

Get this wrong and you’ll either overpay for an over-engineered site or end up with something too limited to grow with your business.

Astro: the content site champion

Astro was purpose-built for content-heavy websites. It ships zero JavaScript by default — your visitors get pure HTML and CSS, which loads almost instantly on any device and connection.

For a typical UK business website (5-15 pages, blog, contact form, maybe a portfolio section), Astro is comfortably the best choice. We build most of our business sites with it for good reason.

What Astro handles brilliantly:

• Marketing and brochure websites
• Blogs and content hubs
• Documentation sites
• Portfolio and case study pages
• Landing pages optimised for conversion

At our Founder tier, an Astro business site typically runs around £5K and ships in 2-3 weeks. Hosting on Vercel or Netlify is essentially free for the traffic levels most business sites see.

Next.js: the application framework

Next.js is React’s most popular framework, and it’s excellent for the right use case. When you need server-side logic, authentication, database queries, or real-time features, Next.js gives you everything in one package.

What Next.js handles brilliantly:

• Web applications with user accounts
• Dashboards and admin panels
• E-commerce with complex product logic
• Sites pulling data from multiple APIs in real-time
• Anything requiring middleware or server-side processing

A Next.js business site with dynamic features typically falls into our Growth tier (£10-15K) because there’s substantially more to build and test.

Where does plain React fit?

It doesn’t, really — not on its own. React is a library for building UI components. It doesn’t handle routing, data fetching, server rendering, or deployment. You need a framework on top.

If an agency tells you they’ll “build your site in React,” ask which framework they’re using. If the answer is Create React App (CRA), run. CRA has been officially deprecated. If they’re hand-rolling everything with Vite and React Router, question why they’re reinventing wheels that Astro and Next.js have already perfected.

The one exception: if you have an existing React codebase and you’re adding a marketing site alongside it, Astro’s island architecture lets you reuse your React components while keeping the content pages lightning fast.

The decision framework

Ask yourself these questions:

Do visitors need to log in? If yes, lean towards Next.js.

Is 80%+ of the site content that changes infrequently? If yes, Astro is the obvious choice.

Do you need real-time data on the page? Next.js. Astro can handle it with islands, but it’s not its sweet spot.

Is SEO and page speed your top priority? Astro gives you this almost for free. Next.js requires more careful configuration.

Are you on a tight budget? Astro sites are cheaper to build and essentially free to host.

So which should you pick?

For 90% of UK business websites, Astro is the right choice. It’s faster, cheaper, simpler, and produces better Lighthouse scores out of the box. We pair it with Tailwind CSS for styling and deploy to Vercel for global CDN distribution.

For the other 10%, where you actually need application-level features, Next.js with Supabase for the backend is our go-to stack. It’s more expensive to build but gives you capabilities that Astro simply can’t match.

The worst choice? Picking Next.js because your developer “knows React” and then paying for complexity you don’t need. That’s like hiring a lorry to do the school run — it’ll work, but you’re burning money and fuel for no reason.

A note on future-proofing

“But what if we need dynamic features later?” is the most common objection to Astro. Astro supports React, Vue, and Svelte components as islands. You can add interactivity incrementally without rebuilding anything. And if you outgrow Astro — which would mean your “website” has become a “web application” — migrating the content layer to Next.js is a well-trodden path.

Starting with Next.js “just in case” is premature optimisation at its finest. Start with what you need today, and you’ll ship faster, spend less, and have a site that actually performs.

If you’re still unsure which framework fits your project, get in touch — we’ll give you an honest recommendation, even if that means pointing you towards a different agency.