Complete guide to migrating your Craft CMS website to Astro. Leave Craft CMS's smaller ecosystem behind and get ships zero js to the client by default (islands architecture). Free migration tool included.
You can migrate from Craft CMS to Astro for free using LeaveWP. Enter your site URL, choose Astro as the destination, and download your content — posts, pages, and media — in minutes. No API keys, passwords, or CLI tools required. Difficulty: Medium. Estimated time: 20-40 minutes.
Official docs: Astro Documentation
Developer-focused PHP CMS with elegant content modeling. Agencies building bespoke sites with complex content requirements, but these limitations push teams toward modern alternatives.
Smaller ecosystem — fewer plugins than WordPress or Drupal
This is the most common reason teams migrate away from Craft CMS. Astro eliminates this issue entirely.
License costs for multi-user projects
With Astro, ships zero js to the client by default (islands architecture).
Requires PHP/MySQL hosting infrastructure
Modern architectures like Astro are designed to avoid this from the ground up.
Fewer community resources and tutorials available
After migrating, you'll no longer need to worry about this — Astro takes a fundamentally different approach.
Content-focused framework that ships zero JavaScript by default. Built with JavaScript/TypeScript (framework-agnostic), it's content-heavy websites that need maximum performance with minimal javascript.
Ships zero JS to the client by default (Islands Architecture)
Use React, Vue, Svelte, or any framework in the same project
Content collections with type-safe Markdown/MDX
Purpose-built for content sites — blogs, docs, marketing pages
Astro is open-source and free to use. You own your code and data with no vendor lock-in. Deploy to any host that supports JavaScript/TypeScript, or use managed platforms like Vercel and Netlify for zero-config deployments.
Side-by-side comparison based on real platform characteristics
| Metric | Craft CMS | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | ⭐⭐⭐ 3/5 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 |
| Performance | ⭐⭐⭐ 3/5 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 |
| Flexibility | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 |
| Cost | ⭐⭐ 2/5 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 |
| Scalability | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 |
| Ecosystem | ⭐⭐ 2/5 | ⭐⭐⭐ 3/5 |
| Language | PHP (Yii framework) | JavaScript/TypeScript (framework-agnostic) |
| Pricing | Free solo / $35+/mo for teams | Free (open-source) |
| Open Source | No | Yes |
Ratings are based on publicly available data, documentation, and community consensus as of 2026. Individual experience may vary.
A detailed breakdown of how your Craft CMS content maps to Astro
What may need manual attention
Custom server-side logic, third-party integrations, and platform-specific plugins will need equivalent solutions in Astro. The core content (text, images, metadata) transfers cleanly.
Migrate your content in three simple steps
Enter your Craft CMS site URL — LeaveWP connects automatically.
Select Astro as destination and choose content options.
Download your migrated content or preview it in your browser.
Migrating from Craft CMS to Astro makes the most sense if you're experiencing smaller ecosystem — fewer plugins than wordpress or drupal or outgrowing Craft CMS's architecture. Astro is best for content-heavy websites that need maximum performance with minimal javascript.
You should migrate if: your Craft CMS site is slow, your hosting costs are climbing, you need developer flexibility, or you want to adopt a modern JAMstack architecture.
You might want to stay if: your Craft CMS site benefits from excellent content modeling — build any structure without plugins and you don't have JavaScript/TypeScript developers on your team.
The migration itself is straightforward with LeaveWP — enter your Craft CMS URL, select Astro, and download your content. The more important question is whether Astro's architecture fits your team's skills and your project's long-term needs.
Explore more migration paths from Craft CMS or to Astro
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