This is the ultimate Astra theme review.
This theme is currently one of the most highly-rated, fastest-growing WordPress themes. But is it right for you?
It is crucial to select the right theme for your website. You limit what your website can do by choosing the wrong theme. It’ll be like building a skyscraper in an area with height restrictions.
We are here to help you make the right choice.
Astra is a powerful WordPress theme that can be used for any purpose: portfolios, blogs, online stores, and business.
The theme has been used over 1,000,000 times. There are many reasons why it is so popular. In this Astra WordPress theme review, we will be discussing them all.
Astra is a great example of this. It supports page builder plugins that allow you to modify your entire website using the WordPress theme customizer. You can import high-quality website designs with just one click.
It does exactly what the older WordPress themes did not do: it combines design flexibility with a lightweight format to speed up your website.
The theme has a lot of demo websites already built and many options in the WordPress Customizer. However, your website will still load quickly.
It’s well worth taking a look at all the great features this theme offers.
Let’s get started.
What’s the buzz with Astra?
Astra by Brainstorm Force is the only theme in history to have more than 1,000,000 users, while still maintaining its 5-star rating.
It is most popular for three primary reasons:
- Astra is Extremely Lightweight. Astra loads in less than half a second, and keeps page and navigation speeds constant even as you grow your site.
- Astra is incredibly customizable: Astra, unlike other fast themes, still retains its customization capabilities. Astra is a great alternative to the usual ugly website. It almost feels like Divi and Avada, even though it’s lightweight.
- Fast website turnaround: Astra is the preferred choice for most agency owners due to its speed. This does not mean that it takes too long to load. It refers to how quickly your website can be up and running. Astra websites and Astra’s prefabricated websites allow you to build a website in just a few hours, with minimal to no hassles.
To create a stunning custom website, you don’t need to upgrade to Astra pro theme. To upgrade to Astra pro theme paid version, all you have to do is buy Astra’s pro add-on. This plug-in allows you to access premium themes.
What about Brainstorm Force?
Brainstorm Force – Are they reliable?
This brand is a web development company based in India. The team consists of WordPress developers who have developed other plug-ins than Astra.
Brainstorm Force’s most popular plugins include Ultimate Add-ons For Elementor, and Ultimate Add-ons For Beaver Builder. Beaver Builder was also developed by this brand.
These widgets enhance the page builders’ capabilities by adding new widgets (header/footer widgets, elements, templates or blocks).
Brainstorm Force is also responsible for the well-known Ultimate Gutenberg Add-ons. These add-ons transform Gutenberg into a native WordPress page builder. You will find advanced custom blocks that offer additional capabilities and features.
The Astra WordPress theme manufacturer is a trusted vendor with many successful products.
What does Astra WordPress Theme offer?
The Astra WordPress theme provides many features, which we will look at in a little while. But before we get into the details, let’s first understand what this theme has to offer.
1. Page Builder Compatibility
Astra was designed with page builders compatibility in mind. Its starter websites use elementor or beaver builder, two of the most well-known page builders.
This theme is compatible with many page builders, making it an excellent choice for busy developers and agencies without any previous experience.
2. Starter Websites
Astra themes come with the tag-along plugin Astra starter sites. Once your theme has been installed and activated, you will have access to over 180 pre-built templates. Many of these templates are completely free. This is because they don’t only contain single-page templates, but fully functional websites with all the necessary plugins, features and pages.
3. Page Builder Categorization – Elementor, Brizy
Astra Starter Sites can be categorized according to the page builder they are using. Templates can be created using Brizy, Beaver Builder, or Elementor. Gutenberg Starter Sites also available.
4. Deep customization options and features
As we have seen, Astra is highly customizable and doesn’t lose speed. This is why Astra has become so popular and highly regarded. A large website can be built with images, posts and drag-and-drop functions in less than one second. This is a remarkable feat.
The paid version (pro) offers more customization options that can be used to customize every aspect of your platform. You can modify the website’s layout, create custom typography, and more. You can edit any section of your website.
Even with Astra’s free version, there are many customization options available. This makes it one of the best free themes to build WordPress sites.
5. Version Improvements
Brainstorm Force’s Astra 2.0 team has improved the customizer to make it easy to customize and design your site. We’ll be seeing more improvements in its usability and performance.
6. Stellar Performance
Astra developers claim that the WordPress theme is smaller than 50KB, which makes it very fast. With standard WordPress data, the theme loads in 0.5 seconds.
Astra WordPress Theme – Features Deep Dive
We now have a general overview of the Astra WordPress theme. In this section we will explore its capabilities and features.
1. Rapid Load Speed
Astra loads very fast ( , which is usually under 0.5 seconds) because the theme doesn’t use jQuery. However, the speed of your final website will depend on many factors, such as plugins and hosting choices. Astra allows you to download Google Fonts directly to your website, and store them locally on your server. This will improve your Core Web Vital Score as well as font loading speed.
This is because Google Fonts requires that every page or post that you load with Google Fonts is requested by Google to fetch the font. This has a negative impact on your CLS points in relation to Core Web Vitals.
The Astra theme includes a Self-Google Font feature. To enable this feature, all the user has to do is click. This feature activates in one Google Font API request. It gathers all font data from Google and stores them locally on your server.
All future requests will be loaded using the locally stored Google Fonts. With a single click, you can also preload local fonts. Your browser would normally have to wait before loading a font file. This causes problems where the browser is set up to load the website’s content but must wait for the font to be downloaded because it’s not yet available. This causes your website to load slowly, which can lead to poor user experience.
The preloaded fronts feature of Astra allows you to tell the browser to start painting your text with your fonts sooner. This can have a huge impact on website speed and performance. To enable this feature, click on the ” preload local fonts” setting.
2. Well-Coded
Even if you use a page builder for a large portion of your website design, it is best to use a well-coded structure or backbone when building a website.
Astra is built upon Automattic’s Underscores theme. This theme is the foundation of all current primary WordPress themes. You can rest assured that this theme’s code is well-organized.
Astra is an accessibility-ready theme that was derived from Underscores. Navigation links for keyboard usage are available, as well as underlined hyperlinks in the primary content. Astra also offers submenus that can be accessed via keyboard and breadcrumbs for seamless navigation.
The theme comes with many theme hooks that can be used to benefit developers who want to add their content. Astra also supports schema markup which can help your website SEO.
3. High Quality Documentation
It can be very frustrating to start with a new theme and then discover that the documentation is not up to par. Astra offers an alternative because of its knowledgebase that is extremely extensive.
Many articles in Astra’s knowledgebase feature video tutorials, while others have annotated screenshots. This is crucial for theme users and helps them to use the features correctly and reap all the benefits of the theme.
Astra’s documentation even includes a section about how to get Astra to look the way you want it to via custom code snippets, which can be added to your site.
4. Astra Starter Sites
Astra stands out from its competitors by offering a wide range of pre-built templates. These templates can be used with different page builders like Brizy, Beaver Builder, Gutenberg, and elementor.
Astra Starter sites makes it easy to start your website development process. Although you will need to modify the demo site content and visuals, it is possible to still create a professional-looking website in a short time.
All required plugins are installed and activated automatically, making imports seamless and quick. This line has a unique feature that allows you to import multiple websites at once, as opposed to just one page like with other themes. This feature saves WordPress hours.
Another amazing feature is the automatic access to all Pixabay libraries, once you’ve created a starter site using Astra’s starter templates plugin. This will save you time searching for stock images to use on your website.
4. Deep customization
Astra offers a customizable editor that gives users many options. You can modify the primary theme colors, post and page layouts, as well as Google Fonts. You can customize the footer, sidebar and header widgets.
There are many themes that allow you to upload your logo. Astra does more than that. Astra allows you to place your logo on the left or right of the main menu. You can also center it above the menu. Astra allows you to adjust the width of your logo and upload different versions for retina or mobile displays.
Astra’s other themes have a major drawback: it is difficult to personalize the footer. Astra, on the other hand, offers footer bar settings that allow you to have either one or two sections of your footer. Each section can have a widget, a footer menu, or text. Astra’s developers included a shortcode to indicate the current year.
Astra also offers a transparent header as a complimentary feature. This allows you to extend your background image into the website’s header area. You can also add transparency and a custom color to your header. The mobile menu can be customized. You can also change the break point where your mobile menu appears.
5. Popular Plug-in Integrations
Astra has made sure that the theme works with all the most popular plugins. The theme is compatible with all page builders, as we have already mentioned in the Astra WordPress review. It comes with a right sidebar, but this can be removed or customized to create a full-width layout for your pages and all content types.
Astra is an excellent choice for creating an e-commerce website. The Astra theme uses WooCommerce default options. This allows you to have greater control over the appearance of your store and product pages. The theme also supports the plug-in Easy Digital Downloads if you have only downloadable products.
Astra can be integrated seamlessly with LMS plugins or LearnDash for anyone who creates a website within the E-Learning space.
Astra Extension with Plugins
You’ll see on Astra’s options page that you can extend the theme with free plug-ins. There are currently 12 plugins available.
All plugins are created by Brainstorm Force, the creators Astra. Nikhil Chavan developed Unlist Posts & Pages.
Five of the free plug-ins are specifically designed for Astra WordPress themes. Although there are great reasons to include this functionality in the main theme, it is well-received that it is a separate function. It helps keep Astra’s core theme lightweight.
Astra hooks plugin comes with a new section to theme customizer that allows you to add JavaScript shortcodes to your website. The Visual Theme Hook displays all Hook locations within your Astra theme.
The Astro Bulk Edit plugin is another option. This plugin helps to reduce the time required to adjust metadata settings, such as page title and sidebar position for each page of your website. If you wish, you can apply these changes to multiple pages at once.
Astra Customizer Resetter plugin is another plugin that extends Astra’s capabilities. This plugin allows you to reset all settings in your theme customizer. This plugin is very useful, even though it’s surprising it wasn’t integrated directly into Astra’s theme customizer.
You can also download many free plugins to extend the capabilities of your Astra theme. Templator, for instance, is a new plugin that lets you save your templates and pages in the cloud. You can easily export them to any website at any time. The customizer search plugin, once activated, replaces the search bar within the WordPress theme customizer to help you find options faster.
These plugins make it easier to create a website using the Astra theme.
Astra WordPress Theme Pricing
Astra WordPress theme-free-version includes enough features to create a professional-grade site without the need to upgrade. However, it has some limitations that may not be the best option for large companies. If you plan to scale, you might need to upgrade to a premium plan.
Before we go into the pricing details for Astra WordPress theme pricing, it is important that you are familiar with the following concepts:
There are no major differences between annual and lifetime licenses beyond the term of the license. Each license type has its own functionality, bonus, and feature. It is not a good practice for businesses to pay annually. As a business, a lifetime subscription will save hundreds to thousands of dollars over the long-term and you won’t have to worry about renewal headaches.
Now, let’s get to the pricing.
Annual Pricing:
- Pro plan costs $59 annually and $249 for a lifetime
- The Essential Bundle Plan is $169 per year and $499 for the lifetime
- The Growth Bundle Plan is $249 per year and $699 for the lifetime
You will need lifetime access as you upgrade to higher plans. You get a 20% discount on future renewals if you pay the annual fee. If your company opts to pay the lifetime fee for Astra’s agency bundle plans instead of an annual payment, it will save money in approximately 2.5 years. If you plan to remain in business for more than 2.5 years, you will save $249 each year.
Is Astra Pro Plan Upgrade Worth It?
Absolutely. Upgrade to Astra WordPress theme paid Plans and get amazing value, including the white label service as well as the additional starter templates. The white label service allows you to create custom websites in minutes for clients and charge them as if you made it yourself.
Despite the fact that the free version is great, we mention it at the beginning of the section. However, the differences become clear when you upgrade. You get access to enhanced and additional controls, extra headers, customized blog layout for bloggers and upgraded WooCommerce functionality. This is a great choice, especially if your store is an e-commerce one. It’s almost like taking a great product, and making it even more amazing.
You can upgrade to even more when you consider that Astra has over 1,000,000+ users, but nearly all of the successful businesses, agencies and stores that use the theme are not on the free plan.
The Astra WordPress theme comes with a 14-day guarantee for any unsatisfying results. You have nothing to lose by upgrading to the upgraded version.
Which Astra Pro Plan Is the Best?
Your specific needs and budget will determine the right Astra Pro package. The entry-level package, for example, is ideal if you don’t need extra access to Astra Starter Sites or additional plugins from Brainstorm Force.
Astra Alternatives
Although this WordPress theme is fantastic, we can’t leave Astra out of this Astra WordPress theme review without mentioning other options. OceanWP, GeneratePress and other great alternatives to Astra are two of my favorites.
GeneratePress
GeneratePress is an excellent competitor to Astra in terms of speed and performance. Both themes have great features. GeneratePress has modules that can be activated or deactivated at will.
GeneratePress’ free version has more features than Astra, which is the main reason it scores more points. All paid and premium plans offer the same quality, core capabilities, and results. Astra is a WordPress-based theme while GeneratePress was built by individual developers. Astra also has its benefits.
The theme is not compatible with page builders in the same way Astra does.
OceanWP
OceanWP, like Astra is designed with page compatibility. This theme is compatible with all major page builders, but it seems that it was primarily designed to work with elementor. You can customize it with many of the same features as Astra.
This theme is great for e-commerce sites as it has many features that boost carts and product pages.
Astra also has a collection of pre-built websites. However, many of these require premium extensions to look as great as Astra’s. This is where Astra comes out on top. OceanWP offers the ability to disable JavaScript or CSS files, which can improve speed and performance.
Astra WordPress Theme: Frequently Asked Questions
These are some frequently asked questions about Astra theme.
1. Is Astra WordPress Theme free?
Absolutely. Absolutely. The Astra theme is free. However, the paid Pro version includes many premium features that are not available in the free plan. They start at $59.
2. What is Astra Pro Version?
Astra Pro is the premium theme version. It includes many features such as multiple website layouts and sticky headers.
3. How can I load Astra WordPress Theme Starter Sites
Install the Starter Sites plugin to load Astra theme starter websites. Navigate to Appearance>> Astra Sites. Next, choose the website that you wish to import. After selecting the starter website, you’ll be asked to install specific plugins. Once the plugins have been installed, click Import Website to import the entire structure and content of your starter website.
Visit BeautifulPress to see some stunning websites created with Astra
Conclusion – Is Astra WordPress theme worth buying?
The answer to all of the questions we asked in our Astra WordPress site builder review is yes.
Astra is a fast, simple and highly customizable theme that allows anyone to create beautiful, professional-looking websites in just a few hours. You don’t need any programming experience, nor have you ever built a website before. All this for nothing.
Access to incredible features is free and there are no upgrades or purchase of pro versions.
