Astro is fast when you resist turning every page into an app shell. For a blog, the safest default is server-rendered or static HTML with only a few intentional interactive touches.
You can model posts as data, generate routes from that data, and keep the whole site easy to inspect. That approach is enough for many marketing blogs and internal publications.
The second decision is to treat layout components as stable infrastructure. Build one strong frame for navigation, hero spacing, grid rhythm, and article typography, then let content do the rest.
The final decision is operational: keep local startup dead simple. If someone can clone the project, run one install command, and see the blog on port 3000, adoption goes up immediately.