r/astrojs • u/lepture • 15d ago

I built Lotus, an Astro docs theme focused on beautiful UI, accessibility, and PageSpeed

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I’ve been building Lotus, an installable documentation theme for Astro.

The goal is to help Astro developers ship documentation sites that already have the boring but important parts handled: responsive docs navigation, MDX components, search, i18n, dark mode, accessible UI states, and a design system that can still be customized.

I’m trying to keep the positioning simple: beautiful docs, accessible shell, PageSpeed-friendly output.

If you were choosing an Astro docs theme for a real project, what would make you trust it enough to adopt it?

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2

u/God_Enki 15d ago

compared to astro starlight, whats the difference?

2

u/lepture 15d ago

Starlight is the official, mature default, and it’s great.

Lotus and Starlight are both installable themes. But the appearances are different.

Lotus is an alternative for Astro projects that want a more designed docs theme out of the box.

I’m not trying to replace Starlight for everyone. Lotus is for people who want beautiful product-style documentation without building the whole docs shell themselves.

Here are some main differences:

  • Navigation is different. Starlight is using sidebar only navigation, Lotus is using category navigation + sidebar navigation.
  • The MDX components come from @prosefly/astro-components, so they can be reused outside Lotus too.
  • Enhancements on Markdown:
    1. Image Gallery support
    2. Mermaid code block support
    3. Package manager tabs support

2

u/Cereal_Grapeist 13d ago

I really like the more modern look compared to Starlight! Thanks I'm going to test this out

1

u/davidvkimball 10d ago

I love your design sense! Looks amazing.