Ever since I got into web dev, having a portfolio site felt like a proper milestone. A clean corner of the internet to show projects, write about tech, and quietly signal that you know roughly what you are doing.
I built mine with Next.js, added a /blog with MDX, and it has been fine.
Lately I have wanted something else. Not more features. More room.
Room to write without trying to sound like someone worth hiring. Room to be blunt, or messy, or inconsistent.
Why a Personal Blog
I want a space that is more me and less resume.
Some days I am reading city planning case studies comparing Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. Other days I am scrolling Architectural Digest for no productive reason at all. I have been thinking about minimalism, about building habits that stick, about how genuinely hard it is to read the newspaper every single day.
And then there is the tech, which does not go away. Next.js, Supabase, React Native, background jobs, the AI stuff.
Cramming all of that into a portfolio blog feels wrong. Like wearing formals when you want to be in pyjamas.
Why Astro
Because it is simple, light, and built around content rather than application state. That is what this needs.
Also because I have been curious about it for a while and never had a reason. This is the reason. Learn it by building the thing, not by watching someone else build the thing.
Not Medium
I considered it. Then remembered half of Medium is behind a paywall now, and none of it feels like mine.
I want a home. Even if it is a subdomain on Vercel for a while, it is still mine.
What's Next
Watch an Astro tutorial, skim the docs, start building.
This one will be closer to a digital garden than a blog. No pressure to go viral, no SEO-perfect posts, nothing scheduled.
If you are reading this on the portfolio blog: that one stays. It keeps being about projects and the developer side of things.
The other one is for everything else. It is coming.