From Wix to emdash: new tech on a real client project
A client project became the chance to test emdash CMS, Cloudflare Workers and Astro in one go. The Lighthouse score went from 77 to 99. What we learned about the stack was worth more.
We moved the site for My Messy Workbench, a New Zealand cosplay and 3D-print maker, from Wix to emdash CMS on Cloudflare Workers. The client wanted the site to look like the workshop feels: dark, precise and rooted in the craft. We wanted a client project that forced us to run brand-new tech in production.
The stack is Astro 6, emdash CMS (a new CMS built on Portable Text and Cloudflare Workers), Cloudflare D1 for the database, R2 for media and Tailwind v4 via @theme blocks. Everything runs on Cloudflare's edge, with TTFB under 100 ms from Oslo.
Before and after
The old Wix site scored 77 on Performance, with a carousel gallery and stock Wix templates. The new landing page scores 99 on Performance, 93 on Accessibility, 100 on Best Practices and 100 on SEO, with real workshop photos and copy we wrote ourselves.
The bigger win is the experience. We've taken a new stack from scaffold to deploy, written down the gotchas (the Astro 6 env pattern, emdash's locale auto-filter, subdomain SPF on Cloudflare), and can reuse the setup on the next client project without fumbling.
We try new tech on real projects before we recommend it to anyone else. When we say something is the right tool for the job, we know where the edges are.