Qwik vs Astro : A Fair Comparison

Startup performances / PageSpeed scores should be similar 🔗

Both Frameworks send just HTML with close to no JavaScript (JS). There should be no reason why either approach should have an advantage over the other. So any comparison which claims one is faster than the other is not the whole story.

Mental Models 🔗

Astro has two different mental models:

1. One mental model for delivering static content (usually .md file; a.k.a Markdown files)

2. Another mental model for delivering interactivity (3rd party Frameworks such as React) The interactivity islands are lazy hydrated to delay JS download / execution.

but Qwik has a single mental model.

It is all just components all the way down. (yes, components as .md are supported.)

In this sense, Qwik is very similar to other meta-Frameworks, but because of resumability, it can skip the download / execution of JS to be like astro.

Content vs App 🔗

Astro is content focused, and therefore it is not the best fit for complex web applications. (As you see this screenshot from their site)

Qwik is web applications focused. The more complex the app, the bigger the win with Qwik. (a static blog is just a low-interactivity app.)

Which for what ? 🔗

Qwik is like Astro but for apps.

Resources & References 🔗

• Miško Hevery one of Qwik creators on Twitter wrote “Qwik is like Astro but for apps.”.
• Astro.build website
• Qwik website