Hatch
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The fastest way to WordPress.
Modern Astro frontend.
Live in 90 seconds.

Keep WordPress as your editor. Replace the slow PHP delivery layer with a modern Astro frontend at the edge. Your content, your plugins, your team โ€” untouched. Visitors get a site that loads fast, everywhere.

Download Hatch, it's free Star on GitHub

~90sFirst deploy, end to end
60sContent sync to live edge
6Themes, ready out of the box
MITOpen source, self-hostable
WordPressWordPress AstroAstro CloudflareCloudflare VercelVercel Linux VPSAny Linux VPS GitHubOpen source WordPress Astro Cloudflare Vercel Any Linux VPS Open source
๐ŸŒ   What is Headless?

WordPress stays. The slow PHP delivery layer goes.

Every time someone visits your site, WordPress runs PHP, hits a database, builds HTML from scratch, and sends it from one server in one location. That's the slow part. It has nothing to do with your content or your editor. "Headless" means you keep WordPress exactly as it is, and only replace that delivery layer. Editors keep wp-admin. Visitors get pages served from a global edge network: no PHP, no database query, just fast cached HTML.

Classic WordPress

Visitor
โ†“ PHP executes
โ†“ MySQL query
โ†“ Build HTML
โ†“ Send from 1 server
  • One origin server, one location
  • PHP runs on every page request
  • Cache plugin needed just to survive traffic
  • wp-admin exposed to the internet

WordPress + Hatch

Editor saves
โ†“ WP REST API
โ†“ Astro SSR
โ†“ 330+ edge cities globally
  • 330+ edge locations worldwide
  • Astro renders HTML, not PHP
  • No cache plugin. Edge handles it.
  • WP admin is a private origin nobody visits

Why WordPress stays?

23 years of plugin ecosystem. 60,000 plugins. Your client already knows the editor. Your team does not want to learn Contentful ($300+/mo) or Sanity ($99+/mo) or anything else. WordPress's editorial layer is genuinely good. The PHP delivery layer is the problem. Hatch replaces only the part that needed replacing.

Why Astro as the frontend?

Astro ships zero JavaScript by default. Built specifically for content-first sites, not apps. Outputs the fastest possible HTML. Runs on any host: Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, Node, Netlify, Fly.io. Reached 46,000+ GitHub stars and ranked among the fastest-growing JS frameworks by weekly downloads in 2024.

There is a longer version of this story. Read the Vision page โ†’ It covers why WordPress should be modern without replacing itself, what it took to build Hatch, and where this is going.

โต   How it works

From zip-upload to live edge site in 90 seconds.

1

Install the plugin on your WordPress site

Drop hatch.zip into wp-content/plugins/ or upload via Plugins โ†’ Add New. Activate. The setup wizard launches automatically and walks you through a diagnostic + theme pick.

2

Pick a host, paste one token

Cloudflare Workers (free tier, edge, 100k req/day) ยท Vercel (free hobby) ยท Your own VPS (one bash command). Wizard generates the Application Password automatically โ€” no manual API password setup.

3

Watch the build, live in ~90s

Broker clones, npm installs, builds the Astro frontend, deploys to your host. Token used once, in memory, dropped on completion. Live *.workers.dev or *.vercel.app URL appears. Connect your custom domain when ready.

4

Publish posts as usual

New posts appear on the frontend within ~60 seconds. SSR fetches WP at request time, edge cache holds the page for 60s. No rebuild loops. No deploy hooks. No webhook plumbing.  It just feels live.

โŠ•   Your infrastructure, your rules

Your visitors load from the nearest of 300 cities.
You pick where the code runs.

Most hosting decisions lock you in the moment you write host-specific code. Hatch doesn't. One Astro codebase, identical on all three targets. Outgrow your host? Switch in 90 seconds โ€” one click in the plugin, zero code changes.

โšก Cloudflare Workers Recommended

330+ cities. Free for 100,000 requests per day. Your visitors hit the closest edge node โ€” under 50ms globally on the free tier. Paste your API token, Hatch handles the rest. Live in 90 seconds.

โ–ฒ Vercel

Free hobby tier. Instant rollbacks. The broker uses vercel deploy --prebuilt so you keep full control of your code. A natural fit if your team is already on Vercel.

๐Ÿ–ฅ Your VPS

Hetzner, DigitalOcean, RunCloud, Coolify, Dokploy โ€” any Linux box with Node 22. One curl command installs everything locally. No broker involved. Fully self-contained on hardware you control.

Also runs on Netlify, Render, Fly.io, AWS Amplify โ€” anywhere Astro SSR is supported. Switch anytime. Costs nothing to move.

Unlike static headless (Gatsby, SSG) โ€” no rebuild on every publish. SSR at the edge: fetched live, cached for speed.

โ†—   What changes for you

Keep the editor your team loves.
Lose the bills, the bloat, the cache-plugin roulette.

Your authors keep wp-admin. Your developers stop fighting cache plugins. Your visitors get a Lighthouse-100 site from a global edge network. Your hosting bill drops to zero on Cloudflare's free tier. Nobody had to learn a new editor or touch a config file.

โœ“ With Hatch (headless)

  • Lighthouse 100 ยท edge-cached SSR, no PHP per request
  • Free hosting tier ยท Cloudflare Workers free tier (100k req/day)
  • WP editor unchanged ยท authors keep what they know
  • Hardened CMS ยท REST locked, login URL changed, xmlrpc off
  • Vendor-neutral ยท REST API, no WPGraphQL lock-in
  • 1-click deploy ยท paste a token, broker builds + ships

โœ— Without Hatch (classic WP)

  • Slow first paint ยท PHP renders every page
  • Plugin bloat ยท every plugin runs on every request
  • Expensive at scale ยท LiteSpeed / WP Engine bills
  • Vulnerable surface ยท wp-admin, xmlrpc, user-enum open
  • Cache-plugin hell ยท W3TC vs Rocket vs LiteSpeed roulette
  • Setup is hours ยท DNS, SSL, CDN, cache, security manual

Works with your existing plugins

โœ… Rank Math โœ… Yoast SEO โœ… SEOPress โœ… ACF / ACF Pro โœ… Meta Box โœ… Fluent Forms โœ… WPForms โœ… Redirection โœ… Cloudflare Turnstile โœ… WooCommerce (browse) โœ… All Gutenberg core blocks ๐ŸŸก WooCommerce checkout (roadmap)

Not compatible: Elementor, Divi, Bricks, WPBakery (PHP page builders). Cache plugins (WP Rocket, W3TC, LiteSpeed) should be deactivated โ€” edge caching is built in.

01 vs Faust / Frontity

Your codebase stays yours

Paste a token. Broker builds from its own runner. Your repo stays yours. Tokens never live on disk.

02 vs WPGraphQL stacks

REST-only, no GraphQL needed

Native WP REST + a tiny /hatch/v1 namespace. No new query layer. Updates don't break on WP upgrades.

03 vs DIY headless

Auto-detects your stack

Yoast / Rank Math / ACF / Fluent Forms. Hatch reads what you have installed and wires it up. No config files.

04 vs static headless

Comments + Forms feel native

Real WP comments on the frontend, spam-gated by Turnstile. Forms post to Fluent Forms / WPForms REST endpoints.

05 vs vendor-locked tools

One-click host portability

Same Astro starter on Cloudflare, Vercel, or VPS. Move in one click. No code change, no DNS panic.

06 vs everyone

One plugin. Batteries included.

REST hardening, App Password wizard, ACF bridge, SEO bridge, Gutenberg block library. Stop installing five plugins.

โšก   Hatch vs Others

The headless WordPress landscape.
Why Hatch wins for most sites.

Every major headless WP approach has a deal-breaker for real teams. Here's the honest picture.

What you need Hatch Faust.js Next.js + WPGraphQL Gatsby + WP Classic WP
1-click deploy from WP admin โœ“ โœ— โœ— โœ— N/A
Publish in wp-admin โ†’ live in ~60s (no rebuild) โœ“ SSR ISR ISR/SSR โœ— SSG rebuild โœ“ Native
Gutenberg blocks render natively on the frontend โœ“ Built-in Partial Dev work Dev work โœ“ Native
ACF / Meta Box custom fields work out of the box โœ“ via REST via WPGraphQL via WPGraphQL via WPGraphQL โœ“ Native
Themes included + one-click switch โœ“ 6 themes โœ— โœ— โœ— โœ“ thousands
No WPGraphQL required โœ“ REST only โœ— Required โœ— Required โœ— Required N/A
Works with existing WP site (Bedrock, subfolder, plain perms) โœ“ Dev work Dev work Dev work โœ“
Built-in security hardening (REST + xmlrpc + app-pwd) โœ“ Built-in โœ— DIY โœ— DIY โœ— DIY โœ— Plugin
One codebase โ†’ Cloudflare, Vercel, or your VPS โœ“ WP Engine focus โœ“ โœ“ โœ— Single server
Open source ยท MIT ยท free forever โœ“ MIT โœ“ MIT โœ“ โœ“ โœ“ GPL

Frontity is excluded โ€” the project was archived in February 2025 after the team joined Automattic. Faust.js data sourced from faustjs.org docs. ISR = Incremental Static Regeneration (rebuilds on a schedule, not on publish).

๐Ÿ”Œ

Zero GraphQL dependency

Every other headless WP approach requires the WPGraphQL plugin. Hatch uses the native WP REST API. Less setup, less maintenance, works with older WordPress installs.

โšก

Publish in WP, live in 60 seconds

SSG tools (Gatsby, many Next.js setups) rebuild your entire site on every publish. Hatch is SSR with a 60-second edge cache. No build queue. No waiting.

๐ŸŽจ

6 themes, ready to deploy

Faust.js and custom Next.js stacks ship with zero UI. You build everything from scratch. Hatch comes with 6 production-ready Astro themes. Pick one, deploy, done.

๐Ÿ‘†

No developer required

The WP plugin wizard handles everything. Generate the Application Password, pick your host, deploy. Faust and Next.js require a developer to set up the stack and write the data layer.

Why WordPress at all?

Why not Sanity? Or Contentful? Or write your own CMS?

Because your client just figured out how to bold a word. Because the writer you hired on Tuesday already knows the editor. Because 60,000 plugins exist for the thing you're about to rebuild from scratch. Because the licensing math on Sanity, Contentful and Hygraph starts billing per seat, per API call, per environment the moment your team grows.

โœ“ What you keep with WordPress

23 years of plugin ecosystem ยท Gutenberg block editor ยท ACF, Yoast, WooCommerce, Fluent Forms ยท zero retraining for your team ยท zero rewriting your content.

โœ“ What Hatch adds on top

Edge-cached SSR ยท 60s content sync ยท Lighthouse 100 ยท free Cloudflare hosting ยท REST-hardened security ยท 1-click deploy to CF / Vercel / your VPS.

โœ“ What you stop paying

$300/mo Contentful seats ยท $99/mo Sanity editors ยท WP Engine premium tiers ยท LiteSpeed licenses ยท cache-plugin renewals. The total replacement = $0 + your time.

๐Ÿค–   The AI objection, answered

"I'll just vibe-code my site
with Claude. I don't need this."

Fair. But you're not building it for yourself โ€” you're handing it to someone who can't prompt their way out of a broken image gallery.

The vibe-code path

  • Week 1: Site looks great. You ship it.
  • Week 3: Client wants to update a blog post. You write a prompt. AI rewrites the wrong section.
  • Week 5: Image gallery breaks. 4-hour debug session.
  • Week 8: Client wants SEO. You hand-craft meta tags per page.
  • Week 12: Client hires someone else to maintain the markdown files.

The Hatch path

  • Week 1: WordPress installed, Hatch deployed, site live.
  • Week 3: Client edits their blog post themselves. Zero messages to you.
  • Week 5: Client uploads 20 images. Done in two minutes.
  • Week 8: SEO is automatic. Their existing plugin just works.
  • Week 12: Client is fully independent. You're already on the next job.

Use both. Build with AI. Run on WordPress. Claude can customize the Hatch theme in an afternoon โ€” the Astro code is clean and extensible. Your client never touches the code. They just write posts and upload images, the same way they always have. You deliver something they can actually run without you.

Headless is the future. WordPress is the present. Hatch ships both, today.

๐Ÿ›ก   Nothing to hide

Giving a deploy token to any tool is uncomfortable.
Here is exactly what happens to yours โ€” and how to skip the broker entirely.

The short version: When you click "Build & deploy," your WP credentials and host token travel to the broker over HTTPS. They live in memory for the ~90-second build window while npm run build runs. Then they're gone. Nothing written to disk. Nothing logged. No database. Ever.

Don't want to trust a third-party broker at all? Good instinct. The broker is MIT-licensed โ€” 7 files of plain Node.js. Fork it, self-host it on any VPS in under 10 minutes, point the plugin at your own instance. Or use the VPS install path and skip the cloud entirely โ€” no broker involved.

  • No long-term token storage โ€” Vercel/CF tokens are used once and forgotten
  • Your content never passes through the broker โ€” Astro fetches WP REST directly at runtime
  • Self-hostable โ€” set HATCH_DEPLOY_BROKER_URL to your own instance
  • Broker-optional โ€” the VPS path installs everything locally, zero third-party
  • Open source โ€” every broker line is public. Read it at hatch-deploy/. Audit before you trust
  Questions, answered honestly

FAQ

Pick a category. Click any question to expand.

Do I need to be a developer?
No. The Hatch wizard handles deploy in about 90 seconds: install the plugin, paste an API token, pick Cloudflare or Vercel. No terminal. No Astro config. No Node version management. If you can install a WordPress plugin, you can run Hatch. Developers get direct access to the Astro source for deeper customisation.
Will my existing WordPress site work?
Yes, if you're on Gutenberg. Content from posts, pages, custom post types, ACF fields, menus, and comments all carry over automatically. No export or import. The WordPress database stays where it is. The one limit: PHP-rendered page builders (Elementor, Divi, Bricks) don't have a headless equivalent without rebuilding pages in blocks.
Do I have to redeploy every time I publish?
No. Hatch uses SSR with a 60-second edge cache. Hit Publish in WP and the post is live worldwide within a minute. A frontend redeploy is only needed when Hatch ships new Astro code. That's a one-click button in the plugin, not a terminal command.
Does it work on shared hosting?
Yes for WordPress. WP stays on your shared host handling the admin and REST API. The Astro frontend runs on Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, or a separate VPS. Your shared host never sees visitor traffic. This is the architectural win: the CMS is decoupled from delivery.
What if I want to go back to classic WordPress?
Deactivate the plugin. Your content is untouched in WordPress. The Astro frontend is yours, MIT licensed, sitting in your own Cloudflare or Vercel account. No vendor lock-in. No data held hostage. Switch hosts in one click, or stop using the frontend entirely.
What about ACF / Meta Box custom fields?
WordPress hides ACF fields from the REST API by default. Hatch's Integrations tab has a one-click button that flips show_in_rest=true for every field group. Custom fields immediately appear on every post and page response. No manual REST registration needed.
Does it work with Elementor / Bricks / Divi?
Not natively. Page builders render via PHP at request time; there's no REST endpoint for the rendered output. Gutenberg core blocks work cleanly. If your site is builder-heavy, keep it on classic WordPress. Hatch is the right tool for content sites built on blocks.
Do my comments still work?
Yes. WordPress comments are fetched server-side and rendered in HTML on every page load, so Google indexes them too. Visitors can post without logging in. Turnstile handles spam filtering. No third-party comment system required.
What about WooCommerce?
Read-only WooCommerce works today: products, variations, categories, and prices all come through the REST API. Native checkout on Astro is not yet available. The practical pattern is hybrid mode: browse on the fast Astro frontend, checkout on WP. That's what most headless WooCommerce stores do, and it's on the roadmap.
Can my existing site's content move to Hatch?
Yes. Your existing posts, pages, categories, tags, ACF fields, and menus are all available via WP REST the moment the plugin is installed. Nothing migrates. You install the plugin, connect, deploy, and every post you've ever published is immediately on the headless frontend.
What about membership or login-gated content?
Not supported yet. Membership plugins like MemberPress and Restrict Content Pro gate content via PHP session checks. The Astro frontend has no WP session layer. Public content works fully. Login-required pages should stay on the WP frontend for now. This is on the roadmap.
What about Polylang or WPML for multilingual?
On the roadmap, not in the current release. Translated posts are accessible through the REST API; the Astro routing layer doesn't yet auto-generate language-prefixed routes. You can manually wire routes in the starter, but there's no wizard for it yet.
Will my SEO break?
No. Rank Math, Yoast, SEOPress, and AIOSEO meta tags pipe through the Hatch head layer unchanged. JSON-LD schema (Article, BreadcrumbList, FAQ, Person, Product) passes verbatim. Your SEO plugin keeps doing its job; Hatch just delivers the output faster.
Where do my images go?
Images stay in the WordPress media library. The Hatch image proxy converts JPEG and PNG to WebP or AVIF on the first request and serves them from your own domain. No third-party image host appears in your HTML. Auto-configured on first deploy, nothing to set up.
Why 60 seconds? That sounds slow.
60 seconds is the edge cache TTL: the window between publishing in WP and visitors worldwide seeing the new post. The visitor experience is fast; cache hits return in under 50ms. Compare that to Gatsby rebuilds (minutes) or manual LiteSpeed cache flushes. For new content propagation, it's the fastest option in headless WordPress.
Do I need to learn WPGraphQL?
No. Hatch uses the native WP REST API plus a thin /hatch/v1 namespace for menus, ACF, and schema. Editors never touch it. The Astro starter already speaks REST.
Does my API token live anywhere?
The Cloudflare or Vercel deploy token is held in memory for the roughly 90-second build window, then dropped. Nothing is stored on the broker. No persistent credential storage. The WP Application Password lives in your own WP database and is only used at deploy time.
Isn't Headless WP just a worse Next.js setup?
Raw Next.js plus WPGraphQL: yes, it's slower to ship, has more surface area to break, and two stacks to maintain. Hatch is not that. The Astro starter is purpose-built for content sites with SSR, edge cache, and a block serializer. Zero glue code. The shape of the problem is different.
Is WordPress's REST API complete enough for a real site?
The base REST is solid for posts, pages, users, and taxonomies. The gaps are real for ACF, menus, comments, and schema. Hatch fills all of them in /hatch/v1/*. ACF gets one-click expose. Menus get a dedicated endpoint. Comments are public-by-design. The complaint disappears with the plugin installed.
Will I end up maintaining two stacks?
Classic WordPress already has multiple layers to maintain: the theme, the cache plugin, the security plugin, the optimization plugin, all needing updates. Headless collapses the visitor-facing layer into one Astro project. The new stack is smaller than what it replaces.
Do rebuild times slow things down on launch day?
True for static-site headless (Gatsby, classic Next.js SSG). Hatch is SSR. No build happens on publish. Hit Publish, wait 60 seconds for the edge cache to flush, done. Launch days are when SSR shines.
Is Hatch overkill for a small blog?
A small blog on shared hosting doesn't need it. Headless pays off when you have 1000+ posts, traffic spikes, a content team that needs WP admin access, or when bounce rate correlates with slow TTFB. If your hosting bill is under $20/month and you post weekly, classic WP is correct. If you're on WP Engine or Kinsta at $100/month for speed, Hatch gets you faster performance with a smaller bill.
Why should I trust your broker with my tokens?
You don't have to. The broker is open-source MIT. Self-host it on your own VPS in under 10 minutes. Or skip the broker entirely and use the VPS install path. The shared broker is convenience, not a requirement. Tokens live in memory for roughly 90 seconds, dropped after the build completes.
What doesn't Hatch do?
PHP-rendered page builders (Elementor, Divi, Bricks), login-gated membership content, native WooCommerce checkout, and multilingual routing are not in the current release. If your site is builder-heavy or membership-driven, classic WordPress is the right tool. These are on the roadmap but not yet shipped.
๐ŸŒฑ   Built in public

Open source. No roadmap behind a paywall.
Join where the project gets built.

Hatch is MIT licensed. The code is public. The roadmap is public. Questions, bugs, and ideas go in GitHub Discussions โ€” not a locked Slack, not a Discord you have to apply to join.

๐Ÿ’ฌ

GitHub Discussions

Ask questions, share what you built, report bugs, vote on roadmap ideas. The main hub โ€” open to everyone.

Join the conversation โ†’
๐Ÿ›

GitHub Issues

Found a bug or a rough edge with your host setup? Open an issue. Clear reproductions get fast responses.

File an issue โ†’
๐•

Follow the build

Releases, behind-the-scenes on what's shipping next, and honest notes on what isn't working yet. No hype.

Follow @adityaarsharma โ†’

MIT licensed ยท No commercial community tier ยท No "Pro community" upsell ยท Just the project, open

๐Ÿฃ Ready when you are

Try the headless WordPress
that doesn't make you choose.

Same editor. Same plugins. Same content. New global-edge frontend in 90 seconds.

Download Hatch, it's free Star on GitHub

MIT licensed ยท No SaaS ยท No account ยท No telemetry ยท Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, or your VPS. Your choice.

Need help with setup or have a hosting question? Drop a note โ†’