Astro for Bricks and Etch Users: What Changes and What Stays
Thinking about Astro after years in Bricks or Etch? What feels familiar, what is missing out of the box, and how to keep building visually.
Astro website builder
Build Astro websites visually.
Astro makes fast, low-maintenance websites, but on its own it is a tool for developers. Tado Studio is the desktop app that adds what was missing: a visual builder and AI chat on your own Astro project, without the terminal.
Is Astro a website builder?
Short answer: not on its own. Astro is a web framework. It turns pages and components into fast HTML, which is why sites built with it load quickly and need little upkeep. But you build them in a code editor, with a terminal, and there is no visual editor and no drag and drop.
That is the gap Tado Studio fills. You get the speed and simplicity of an Astro site, and a way of building it that feels closer to the visual builders you know.
New to Astro? Read the official introduction
How it works, in three steps.
Watch an Astro site being built in Tado Studio: AI creates a page for a ceramics studio, then it is refined visually, checked on every screen size and published.
The video shows a page being built in Tado Studio. A prompt in the AI chat creates a page for Fernbrook, a ceramics studio, that follows best practices. A card component gets its props, and a shared padding token changes all three cards. A selected element is changed through the AI chat, content comes from a collection, and the page is checked on every screen size. It is then published to GitHub and Cloudflare, goes live, and stays a regular Astro project with plain files. It ends with the Tado Studio logo and Join the waitlist.
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Start a new Astro site.
Describe the site you need in the chat. AI builds the first version, guided by best practices for accessible, responsive and semantic HTML.
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Select and refine.
Click any section, component or element. Change its text and styling with visual controls, or ask the AI for a change on just that part. Update a shared style and every place that uses it follows.
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Publish.
Push your project to GitHub in one click and publish it to Cloudflare from the same app. Review and test the result before you publish.
What you get with Tado Studio.
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Build visually.
Select a section or a component and change it with visual controls, the way you would in a page builder.
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Ask your AI.
Describe a change in the chat and Codex or Claude Code makes it on the part you selected.
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Keep your files.
Your site stays a regular Astro project on your own computer. Open it in another editor whenever you like.
Astro on its own vs Astro with Tado Studio.
| Astro on its own | Astro with Tado Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| Visual building | No visual builder | Visual controls on every section and component |
| Terminal | Needed to create, run and publish a site | Not needed: you build in the app |
| AI | Through separate coding tools | Built-in chat with Codex or Claude Code, on the part you selected |
| Client editing | Needs a separate CMS setup | On our roadmap: client editing with EmDash |
| Your files | A regular Astro project | Still a regular Astro project you own |
Made for people who build sites for clients.
Coming from Bricks, Etch, Builderius or Elementor? You already think in sections, components and reusable styles. Tado Studio works with the same ideas, on a site that has no plugins to update and no database to maintain.
From the blog
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Astro vs WordPress for Client Sites: An Honest Comparison
Astro or WordPress for your next client site? A practical comparison of maintenance, content editing, hosting, cost and AI workflows, with clear picks.
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Best CMS for Astro Client Sites: How to Choose
Git-based, headless or no CMS at all? How to pick the right CMS for an Astro client site, with honest picks for small clients, teams and visual editing.
Questions about building with Astro.
What you need to know before you start.
No. Astro is an open-source web framework. Tado Studio is a desktop app for building Astro sites visually and with AI. Every site you make is a regular Astro project, so it keeps working without Tado Studio.
No. You build visually and with the AI chat. The code is there when you want it, as plain Astro files.
Codex with a supported ChatGPT subscription, or Claude Code with a supported Claude subscription. You don’t need separate API billing, and your AI subscription is separate from Tado Studio.
Websites you build for clients and for yourself, such as business sites, landing pages, portfolios and blogs. Astro is at its best for content-driven sites that should load fast and need little upkeep.
Yes. Reuse your skills, CSS framework and components across client projects. Colors, spacing and type live in one design system, so a change carries through the whole site.
Client editing with EmDash is on our roadmap. Until then, you make the changes, or connect one of the content tools that already work with Astro.
Tado Studio publishes to Cloudflare. Because it is a regular Astro project, you can also deploy it to almost any host yourself.
We are preparing the first public release. Join the waitlist for launch updates and an exclusive launch discount.
Be first in. Get the launch discount.
Be the first to hear when Tado Studio launches, and get an exclusive launch discount code.
A paid product, built for real websites.
- Pricing will be announced before launch.
- We’re planning one subscription per maker, with unlimited local projects.
- Your AI subscription and hosting are separate from Tado Studio.
What happens after you join.
- Confirm your email address.
- Get launch news, with your discount code.
- Download the Tado Studio desktop app at launch.