DEV Community: Ammar Najjar

I Rebuilt My Personal Site with Astro + Bun + Cloudflare, Here’s the Full Architecture Breakdown

Ammar Najjar — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 07:26:39 +0000

After years with a heavier Docusaurus/React setup, I decided it was time for something lighter, faster, and more maintainable.

The result is a fully static, high-performance personal website that scores excellent Core Web Vitals while staying simple to develop and deploy.

What I cover in the new post:

Why Astro became the perfect fit (zero JS by default)
Switching the entire toolchain to Bun (spoiler: it feels much snappier)
How the site delivers under 10 KB of JavaScript on most pages
Smart image optimization, automatic dimension injection, and responsive handling
Internationalization (i18n) setup with content collections
The complete deployment pipeline with GitHub Actions + Cloudflare Pages
Dark mode without layout shifts, Shiki syntax highlighting with CSS variables, and more
How local AI tools (running on my Mac) helped shape the rebuild

If you're interested in modern static site architecture, performance-first development, or just want to see a clean, thoughtful stack in action, I think you'll enjoy this one.

Read the full technical deep dive here:

👉 https://ammar-najjar.com/blog/website-architecture/

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments:

What stack are you using for your personal site or blog right now?
Are you team static or still running full server-side frameworks?
Any tools you're excited about in 2026?

Looking forward to the discussion!

A Lunch Conversation Changed My Website

Ammar Najjar — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 07:11:50 +0000

A Lunch Conversation Changed My Website

Sometimes, the best engineering decisions don't start with code.

Mine started over lunch.

A simple conversation made me realize that although my personal website still worked, it no longer matched how I wanted to write, experiment, and share my work. Every improvement came with unnecessary friction, and I found myself maintaining the platform more than enjoying it.

That was the moment I decided it was time to rebuild.

I chose Astro, but this isn't really a story about Astro. It's about recognizing when a project has outgrown its foundation, and why rebuilding can be a better investment than continuing to patch what's already there.

In the article, I cover:

Why one conversation changed my perspective.
Why I decided to rebuild instead of iterate.
Why Astro became my framework of choice.
The lessons I learned throughout the migration.

If you've ever looked at one of your side projects and thought, "If I were starting today, I'd do this differently," you'll probably relate.

I'd love to hear whether you've ever rebuilt a project for the same reason.

Full article:
https://ammar-najjar.com/blog/rebuilding-website-astro/

Nine Years on GitHub Pages. Why I Finally Moved to Cloudflare Pages

Ammar Najjar — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:51:55 +0000

After almost nine years on GitHub Pages, I decided it was finally time to migrate my personal website to Cloudflare Pages.

The migration itself was easier than I expected, but I still ran into a few interesting challenges around Docusaurus, Yarn, custom domains, DNS, and sitemap generation.

In this article, I explain:

Why I decided to move
What I gained
The issues I encountered
Lessons learned along the way

If you're considering moving your own static site, I hope it saves you some time.

👉 Read the full article here:

https://ammar-najjar.com/blog/github-pages-to-cloudflare/

Have you stayed with GitHub Pages, or have you moved to another platform? I'd love to hear what influenced your decision.