Keep Astro's Speed, Move Onto WordPress
Astro is a brilliant framework, but editing content in Git is not for everyone. We rebuild your Astro site as a lean custom WordPress theme, import your Markdown and MDX content, and hand over a fast site your team can actually edit, and that you own.
Some of our direct clients
Why Migrate With Us
Seven years of custom WordPress builds, done in-house by a UK team, so your Astro site is rebuilt as lean, fast code rather than approximated, with the content model mapped cleanly and the code handed over as yours.
An Editable CMS at Last
Your team logs into a real admin and edits pages, posts and landing pages directly. No more opening a developer ticket for a copy change.
The Speed You Already Have
We keep the performance characteristics Astro gave you, lightweight markup, minimal JavaScript and strong caching, in a lean custom theme rather than a bloated one.
No More Git for Content
Publishing stops meaning a commit, a build and a deploy. Content goes live the moment an editor hits publish, with no code touched.
Your Content Carried Across
Content collections in Markdown and MDX are imported into WordPress posts and pages with ACF and Gutenberg, with MDX components mapped to blocks.
Indexed URLs Preserved
We keep your existing URL structure where we can and put redirects in place where we cannot, so the pages you already rank for are not lost.
A Site You Own
The theme and the code are handed over documented, on hosting you control, with no platform lock-in and nothing tying you to us.
The Stack We Move You Onto
A lean custom WordPress build at the core, with ACF and Gutenberg handling the content your Markdown and MDX collections used to hold, and your integrations rebuilt against real APIs. Where a project is genuinely a web application rather than a content site, we will tell you and build it on Laravel instead.
Laravel & Bespoke Platforms
For systems and platforms that require bespoke processes, data handling complex integrations or internal business platforms with security at the forefront of the build.
WordPress & WooCommerce
For fast, reliable and easy to manage brochure based websites built following best practice with a bespoke theme powered by ACF Pro and supporting custom built plugins.
Shopify & Shopify Plus
For eCommerce and retail brands looking to grow revenue significantly online. Built using a bespoke theme specific to your brand and with a full seamless migration from legacy platforms.
Recently Completed Projects
Clintons Cards
A full migration from Magento 2 to Shopify Plus, with order, customer, product, stock and finance integrations kept live through the switch.
Ecommerce · Shopify Plus · Integrations
QualityHive
A Laravel platform that web agencies use to capture, assign and close website bugs, taken from wireframe to launch, then handed over as clean, documented code.
SaaS platform · Laravel · API integrations
The Sauce Foundry
A brand, a WooCommerce store and product photography for an artisan hot sauce startup, launched to a 3.8% conversion rate from day one.
Ecommerce · Branding · WooCommerce
Have a project like these in mind?
Get in touchHere's What Our
Clients Say
Consistently rated 5* on Google by our full build clients and retainer clients.
Zestcode really have proven to be “website design & development specialists” whilst maintaining the very best customer service. Not easy to find a well-rounded company like Zest these days that tick all the boxes. 5*
Head of Marketing, Masterclip
After working with Zestcode for over 2 years I wouldn’t trust any other web developers. An agency that are committed to getting the project right and going above and beyond expectations.
Director, Novus Digital
Harry and his team have just finished producing our new website, his team have done an amazing job producing our website and their continuous communication throughout made the process a lot easier.
Director, JL Phillips
The whole process was efficient, fast and incredibly well managed. Communication was clear throughout, they understood exactly what we were trying to achieve, and they delivered without unnecessary delays or complications.
Director, Teaching Tomorrow
The main project Zestcode did for us was developing our bespoke Laravel system, which involved complex API integrations and secure data management. They were knowledgeable, responsive and easy to work with throughout.
Managing Director, Heath Crawford
Zestcode are a superb web design and development agency. Everything they produce is top quality. Harry is super responsive, always gets back to you quickly, and is an absolute pleasure to work with.
Marketing Manager, Which Health Cover
Working with Zestcode has been a genuinely positive experience from start to finish. What stood out most was how much time they took to understand how the project would fit into our existing processes before diving in. Rather than just building to a spec, they asked the right questions upfront.
Marketing Manager, Roof Maker
Zestcode Digital have just finished my website and I am beyond thrilled with it! I highly recommend their services not only are they professional and proficient but incredibly helpful.
Director, Select Art Gallery
It's an easy and enjoyable process working with Zestcode Digital, highly recommended.
Director, Whoisvisiting
Their team is highly responsive, especially in time-sensitive situations, and their ability to deliver reliable solutions quickly has been a huge asset. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking for dependable web development support.
Marketing Manager, Slick Gorilla
Having close communication with Harry throughout the whole project has been invaluable. He always makes sure to explain things thoroughly and helped me understand all the different aspects of the project that I needed to know.
Director, All Abroad
Astro to WordPress FAQs
Migrating an Astro Site to WordPress
Most people arrive at this page with the same situation: a fast Astro site they are happy with, and a content team who cannot update it without a developer. Here is what the migration actually involves and what you end up with.
When an Astro site needs a CMS
Astro is a modern, content-focused front-end framework and static site generator, and it is very good at what it does. Its islands architecture ships little or no JavaScript by default, pages are built from components in .astro files, and content lives in collections written in Markdown or MDX. The sites it produces are fast, and developers enjoy building them. None of that is in question.
The friction is that Astro is not a content management system. Content usually sits as Markdown or MDX files in a Git repository, so every change means a developer editing a file, committing it, building and deploying. That is fine for a technical team, but it keeps non-developers locked out of their own site. Some teams bolt a headless CMS on top, which works but adds another system to run. If your editors need to publish without touching code, that is where a move makes sense, and our wider WordPress development agency work is built around exactly that kind of editable, ownable build.
Rebuilding Astro components as a fast custom theme
We take your Astro components and layouts and reproduce them as a lean custom WordPress theme, rather than reaching for a commercial theme or a page builder. A page builder would only trade one kind of lock-in for another and would undo the performance you came here to keep, storing your layout in a heavy proprietary format. A custom theme contains only what your site needs.
The goal is that the migration is invisible to a visitor and to your page speed. We carry the lightweight markup and minimal JavaScript across, keep caching tight, and expose only the fields your team will actually edit. The site looks and performs like your Astro build, and behaves like a proper WordPress site for the people running it, handled as part of the same web design and development discipline.
Importing Markdown and MDX content into WordPress
A migration is only worth doing if nothing is lost in it. Your content collections are imported rather than retyped: Markdown and MDX move into posts and pages, front matter maps to ACF fields, and the body becomes Gutenberg content. The MDX components you dropped into your content are mapped to matching WordPress blocks, so the structure survives the move.
Where your Astro site talked to a third-party service, a form handler, a search index or an external data source, we rebuild that connection properly through our API integration work rather than leaving it tied to the old build. Agencies can have all of this delivered under their own brand through our white label WordPress development, with us invisible to the end client.
Not sure your Astro site needs moving?
Tell us about the build, even roughly. We will tell you plainly whether a migration is worth it and what it would take, with no sales pitch attached.
Keeping performance, plus ownership and support
Preserving the URL structure matters, because a site that has been live has indexed pages to protect. We keep the existing URLs where we can and add redirects where we cannot, so search engines find the same content at the same addresses. A lean build keeps load times low, and where speed needs pushing further our WordPress speed optimisation work carries on from there. If a project turns out to be a genuine web application rather than a content site, we will tell you, and it may suit Laravel better than WordPress.
Ownership is the other half of it. At handover the theme, the code and the site are yours, documented, on hosting you control, with no platform and no headless CMS subscription to keep paying. Our WordPress support retainers are available if you would rather we kept it updated and monitored, and if you want to talk it through first you can always get in touch. Either way, keeping your own site online never depends on a developer running a build again.
Partner with Zestcode for Industry Leading Quality and Reliability
Tell us what you're looking for and we'll see how we can help. Quotes are typically provided within 2 working days of the initial call.