Astra Theme Review (2020) | Astra Pro vs Astra Free Comparison

In this Astra theme review, I will be dissecting all features and options this popular theme offers. A website is like an interview. It takes roughly 7 seconds for an employer to look at you or your resume to know if they are going to hire you, regardless of what information comes out.

The first step to being successful is appearance and presentation. The same goes for your website. Using Astra theme is the same as dressing up and looking presentable for an interview.

Your audience is your interviewer, and it is your job to make sure your website passes.

Despite the countless WordPress themes available on the market and the hundreds of agencies offering design services, picking up the right theme for your new, or already working website is a daunting task.

You have so many themes to choose from that your choice always seems wrong no matter what you select.

Usually, when you find a theme you like, you check the demo, ask the person who built the theme a couple of question, and you proceed with the purchase. Here’s where it gets complicated. Most of the times, the demo you previously saw is way different from what’s happening in reality.

You hoped for a clean and easy to use the theme, but you got a slow and theme full of options which you will never use. Astra theme can be a solution for different websites mainly because it offers a lot of different templates and layouts.

You can use the theme for your blog, eCommerce needs, as the company website, for a small agency, local business, etc. Astra is fully customizable, and you can change every little pixel to fit your needs.

NOTE: I use Astra theme on this website.

Astra Theme Review – What is Astra?

Astra is a theme for WordPress that combines speed, style, and customizable options for a user’s website preferences. Astra can be used for business sites, blogs, portfolios, biographies, WooCommerce storefronts, restaurants, etc.

It contains websites with pre-built pages that saves you time so you can put it towards other parts of your website. Demo designs can be customized easily without using code. The customizable options in Astra are incredible.

You can build a website to your liking, even taking away page titles, sidebars, or modifying the width of your page. What makes Astra stand out compared to other themes is the speed. Its speed is so lightweight that it is superior to other themes in the market.

Astra comes with pre-built SEO components, and you can manage the layout of the header, archives, pages, footer, sidebar, posts, blogs, etc. You can set your colors, fonts, content, and even meta. Astra WordPress theme has no jQuery.

This means there is no render blocking that inhibits performance optimization. Instead, Astra uses Vanilla JavaScript. It’s so light that the amount of KB of resources is less than 50 KB, where other companies average at around 300 KBs.

Pingdom gave Astra a speed grade of 100 percent, whereas Google DEV gave it a 95 percent and YSlow gave it 91 percent (according to data Astra team provided).

Astra integrates WooCommerce seamlessly, which is highly beneficial to everyone who wishes to build their online store. It provides a plethora of unique features that can transform your idea of your brand into a reality.

What is Astra Pro?

Astra is a WordPress theme available for free from the WordPress repository.  Astra Pro is the premium add-on available for Astra theme. The pro version contains additional functionality and customization options.

Astra has another plugin which compliments Astra Pro called Astra Sites. Astra Sites offer a selection of premade websites complete with working pages and graphics ready to go.

Astra is a lightweight, fast WordPress theme which offers several customization features in the free theme.

The Astra Pro add-on is installed separately and extends the theme options adding features such as transparent headers, custom layouts and much more.

It offers more advanced features which help to build and customize your website in a unique manner even without having to change or add a single piece of code. Though it offers many advanced features, each feature is given as a separate module.

You can choose to activate which features you want, and other features would remain deactivated thereby making it less complicated and saves loading time. Using lesser features also adds to the performance of your theme. You can also extend the Astra theme with free plugins.

Embed custom fonts files in your Astra theme, embed Typekit fonts, create new sidebars and display them conditionally on specific locations of the website, edit Astra Meta settings on a number of pages/posts at once,  reset your Astra theme customizer settings from directly within the customizer interface, “hook” your custom Content, Shortcodes or JavaScript code in the various hook locations, etc.

Astra Theme Review – Features

Fonts and typography are one of the items that people want to control fully. With 700+ Google fonts being fully-integrated and a free Custom Fonts plugin, there is no shortage of fonts to choose from.

It is easy to control typography size by the device to enable full responsiveness, with plenty of additional transformations options such as Text Transform for headings, the font size in PX or EM as you prefer, and other typography options.

Site layouts can be enabled through a feature of Astra Pro, which gives the end user the option to choose from Boxed, Full Width, Max Width, Padded and Fluid layouts. Spacing can also be adjusted to suit the needs of the user using margins and paddings around elements.

If the site you’re planning will also focus on blogs or content marketing, the configurations of the look and feel of your posts are going to be important. In Astra Pro you have a grid, masonry, list blog layouts, date box, excerpt, infinite scrolling, and post pagination are also built-in.

With Quick View, your customers can preview your products without opening a new page to avoid cookies and speed reductions, while still getting a good view of your product information.

Widget Optimized tool works hand-in-hand with the sidebars and helps you optimize your page by using a simple “drag and drop” function to add variations to the filters in your sidebars.

Using Infinite Scroll visitors can load products as they scroll down and experience your showcase dynamically.

Make your display look organized by choosing a grid layout and control how many columns, rows, and buttons you would like.

Off-Canvas Sidebar is perfect for shopping. Here, you can install filters so that your users can quickly find what they are looking for and improve their experience overall.

This sidebar hides after you’re done selecting it, to increase what the user can see while shopping. Dedicated Sidebars are for the users who like to constantly see what filters they can, and have, applied to. This can boost user engagement, and boost single pages.

With Gallery Options visitors can see product images zoomed in and can scroll around to adjust their view both vertically and horizontally while looking at the options to the side.

With Dropdown Cart shoppers can quickly see what is in their cart and items’ summary without checking out or removing them from their cart.

Sales Bubble Style is used solely for style and entertainment. Users love using trendy bubbles where you can customize your products in a fun way that boosts sales.

Product Catalog helps you filter just like a sidebar, but it adds categories that exclude certain items, so they aren’t looking through a long list of products when they are looking for something specific.

Various header and footer customizations options are available, which can also be extended if you purchase Pro add-on.

Given that any site you create needs to conform to your brand colors, the Astra theme is entirely flexible and customizable when it comes to setting colors options.

Headers, content, pages, archives, blogs, sidebars and footers are all completely configurable, although, for some details and subtle tweaks, you’ll have to opt for the PRO version.

In terms of other design options, the Astra theme also provides plenty of flexibility. The brand’s logo can be left-aligned, centered, or right-aligned and there are different layouts you can use for the footer.

Astra Pro also allows customizations of the mobile device-specific headers, headers, layouts and the custom code above and/or below the content and plenty of other customization options.

An important feature which most sites will require these days is full WooCommerce-integration.

Grid layouts for products, infinite scrolling, off-canvas sidebar which can be triggered at the click of a button, a quick view option for product images, various gallery options, a drop-down shopping cart, and other neat integrations are all provided in Astra theme.

Page builders have been the latest craze for quite some time now. Astra integrates and works seamlessly with any WordPress page builder. Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, Thrive Architect, Gutenberg, Brizy are all compatible to work with Astra theme.

Astra comes with pre-made templates explicitly made for Elementor and Beaver Builder. Also, some templates for Brizy page builder are coming soon. Also, developers of Astra theme have made Ultimate addons for Elementor and Ultimate addons for Beaver Builder.

Pre-made website templates are something which every agency and website creator wants. Astra comes with a wide range of pre-built website templates for almost every purpose and business.

Templates help you in saving a lot of time as you don’t have to create a site from scratch. Just import a demo website, and put your content in it.

All of the sites that you build with Astra will be Guttenberg ready. LifterLMS integration and LearnDash Integration will give you several design options and features that focus more on providing a better learning experience.

Those are just a couple of features that are possible with Astra theme.

What’s the Difference Between Astra Free and Astra Pro?

The Astra theme comes in two versions. The free version is downloadable from the WordPress.org directory and very limited in options it provides. The Astra Pro addon adds many more features and modules so you can customize your website without limitations.

ASTRA FREE THEME VS ASTRA PRO

• Name
• Price
• Transparent Header

  Use the transparent header that sets a transparent header background and pulls the page up, merging both of them.
• Sticky Header

  This is a header that sticks on top of the page even when the user scrolls. It allows quick access to the menu from any part of the page.
• Mobile Headers

  With this, you can customize and adjust header breakpoints, set a different logo, menu styles, colors, etc. for a mobile device.
• Page Headers

  You can add custom page headers and set display rules to show them up on specific pages and posts of your website.
• Mega Menu

  Create beautiful templates with your favorite page builder or drop in a shortcode to include a layout within a mega menu on your website.
• Colors & Typography

  You can set colors and fonts that integrate well with your brand, and easily manage the colors and typography of the entire website.
• Dedicated Sidebar

  Create page specific sidebars that can override the settings and customizations of the default sidebar on your website.
• WooCommerce Ready
• Boxed Layout

  Display your primary content in a boxed layout to distinguish it from the other content seen on the page.
• Full Width Layout

  Full width layout that lets you use the entire width of the primary content on your website.
• Padded Layout

  You can insert specific margins on the edges of the content to give it a padded look.
• Fluid Layout

  Fluid layout that lets you stretch the entire website till the ends of the screen.
• Spacing Control

  Manage the margins and paddings around all the elements and overrides the default space settings.
• Default Container

  Default container, called the primary container with its own specific layout and settings within the customizer itself.
• Google Fonts

  Select from as many as 700+ Google fonts to make sure you get the best typography for your website.
• Custom Fonts

  Wish to use a custom font on your website? With the free Custom Fonts plugin, you can import and use any custom font you like.
• Responsive Font Size

  Control your typography size according to the device it will be viewed on. You can select different font sizes for different devices.
• Paragraph Margin Option

  Option to manage the spacing between paragraphs and around them using the paragraph margin option.
• Font Size PX, EM

  Wish to use your favorite unit to determine the font size? Astra lets you set them in PX or EM.
• Text Transform

  Text transforms for your heading tags. You can select a uniform text format for a particular heading tag.
• Primary Header Colors

  Series of options to control the colors and background within the primary header on your website. You can change them for mobile and desktop.
• Above Header Colors

  Manage the colors and background on your above header. Set different colors and backgrounds for a mobile device.
• Below Header Colors

  Change the color and background in your below header
• Transparent Header Colors

  Set different colors and modify them easily on the transparent header
• Sticky Header Colors

  Series of options to control the colors and background within the sticky header on your website.
• Content Colors

  Easy interface to manage the colors of different types of content from a single place. You can control colors for heading tags and more.
• Blog / Archive Colors

  Manage the colors on your blog or archive pages
• Single Page Colors

  Manage colors and background on the single pages of your website
• Sidebar Colors

  Customize the colors and background of your sidebar
• Footer Colors

  Various options to manage colors on the footer
• Grid Layout

  Showcase all your blog posts in a grid layout on your blog page
• List Layout

  Set your blog page to display your blog posts in a list layout that will place every post one after the other.
• Masonary Layout

  Display your blog posts in a trendy masonry layout
• Highlight First Post

  Highlight the first post in your list.
• Date Box

  Display a trendy date box for every post element that you add on your blog page.
• Excerpt Count

  The excerpts act as a summary of the post. You can fetch respective excerpts to be displayed with every post on the blog page.
• Blog Structure Control

  You can manage how individual posts are shown on a blog page. Control the structure by placing the feature image, title and meta text in order.
• Blog Content Width

  You can manage the content width of your blog page using the Blog content width option. This option changes the container width of this page
• Post Pagination

  Add stylish pagination to distribute your blog posts within several pages
• Infinite Loading

  You can select the infinite loading option that keeps loading blog posts on the same blog page as the user continues scrolling below.
• Logo Align

  Align logo left, right or center
• Mobile Header Designs

  Add breakpoints and display flyouts, the hamburger menu and more according to your needs of your website.
• Above Header Content

  Add all types of content within your website’s above header.
• Below Header Content

  Add different widgets, HTML content, shortcodes and more to manage the content within your website’s Below header.
• Above Header Layout

  Manage and control the layout of your above header along with the content on it.
• Below Header Layout

  Manage the below header layout along with its content.
• Flexible Footer Layouts

  Select a flexible footer layout to contain different types of content such as widgets. Text, HTML code, shortcodes, etc.
• Footer Bar Layout

  Select the right layout you want to display with the Footer bar on your website. You can select and manage content within it.
• WooCommerce Grid Settings

  Allows you to display your products in a grid layout that you can customize as per your needs.
• WooCommerce Infinite Scroll

  Do you wish to load all the products on a single page? You can do so my choosing infinite loading that loads products when the users scroll down
• WooCommerce Off-Canvas Sidebar

  Add an off canvas sidebar on the Shop page. This sidebar remains out of screen initially and can be triggered through a button or link.
• WooCommerce Quick View

  Enable the quick view option that lets users take a closer look at the product without opening it in a new page.
• WooCommerce Gallery Options

  Display all your products in a product gallery on your Shop page. You can set the layout as grid or list and customize it further.
• WooCommerce Dropdown Cart

  Show a dropdown cart that lets users see the products that have been added to the cart or add one through it.
• WooCommerce Sales Bubble Style

  You can display trendy and attractive sales bubbles on your products that encourage quick purchase and boost sales.
• LifterLMS Integration

  Integrates seamlessly with LifterLMS to help you build an attractive and distraction free online course website.
• LearnDash Integration

  Integrates seamlessly with LearnDash to help you build a user-friendly and attractive website to offer online courses.
• Schema Integrated

  Comes with the basic schema markup implementation that is needed to help search engines understand your website better.
• SEO Optimized
• Address Widgets

  Allows you to frame and display your business address anywhere on the page without a line of code.
• Info List Widgets

  Add an info list anywhere on the page. Use various icons and create a good looking informative list on your page
• Social Icons Widgets

  Add social icons.
• Custom Header

  You can create custom headers using your favorite page builder. Build your own custom header and enable it on the entire website or specific pages.
• Custom Footer

  Build custom footers with your favorite page builder and use them on the entire website or particular pages you wish to show it on.
• Custom 404 Page

  Design an attractive custom 404 page with content of your choice
• Custom Layout – Hooks

  With hooks you can inject custom code and content anywhere you wish to add them.
• Display Conditions

  You can choose to display a custom layout across the entire website or select specific pages you wish to show them up on.
• Gutenberg ready

• ASTRA FREE THEME
• Free

Learn More

• ASTRA PRO
• $59

Learn More

Astra PRO Pricing

Astra Pro costs $59 annually, but you can also purchase lifetime package for $249. Want even more? There are two other pricing plans that you can get through Astra called the Mini Agency Bundle and the Agency Bundle.

The Mini Agency Bundle includes all of the features in the Astra Pro plan, 50+ ready-made starter sites along with a WP Portfolio Plugin, and a choice of one page Builder Addon.

You can choose between Ultimate Addons for Elementor or Beaver Builder. This plan costs $169 if you decide to pay annually or lifetime package for $499.

The Agency Bundle includes all from previous plans plus (and WP Portfolio plugin, Ultimate Addons for both Beaver Builder and Elementor) but also a Convert Pro, Schema Pro and all future plugins made. This costs $249 annually or a lifetime fee of $699.

Astra Theme Review Final Words

If you’re looking for an easily accessible and customizable WordPress theme, you can’t go wrong with Astra. SEO friendly and ready for all Page Builders, this theme is perfect if you don’t want to be bothered with advanced site building.

Astra theme will give you everything you need, and more. Customize its layout, shift between different header options, edit colors, backgrounds, etc.

The theme is widget-friendly, with up to four areas to place them, and integrated with Toolset for more customization. Its powerful Add-on pack offers even more options. Compatible with WooCommerce and lots of other plugins, it’ll make your life easier.

Astra is very fast, with a loading speed of around half a second. It’s designed to be simple, but still offers many different options to customize the website.

Astra Starter Sites plugin gives you the opportunity to use various pre-made templates and adapt them to your business. Its compatibility with page builders means you can do everything with little effort and no HTML knowledge.

If there’s a bad side to this theme, it’s the fact that you’ll have to pay more if you want to gain full access to all it has to offer. However, Astra Pro comes at a reasonable price, and it will give you so many options.

Even if you choose to stick with the free pack, you’ll find that it’s more than enough for your business needs. If Astra theme is not what you are looking for then I highly recommend free OceanWP theme or paid Deep theme.

Astra Theme

9.5

Easy to use

9.2/10

Settings

9.7/10

Price

9.5/10

Design

9.2/10

Ovewall quality

9.7/10

Pros

• Customizable layouts
• Fast loading speed
• Pre-made design templates
• Compatibility with other page builders
• Free version
• Easy to configure
• Clean design

Cons

• Full extended version cost money

Learn More!