Astra Theme Review

Astra theme is a super-fast, highly customizable, stylish WordPress theme developed by Brainstorm Force. Not only does it have high 5-star ratings but also more than 700k installs, making it one of the best WordPress theme of all time.

One of the most distinguished features of this theme is its ability to load sites in less than half a second. This is because of its super light nature (less than 50KB). It also offers you both free and paid versions depending on your need.

Astra is SEO friendly and made to work with different web builders to make your website development journey much easier. If you’re after an all-purpose theme, Astra is definitely what you need.

This review has tried to cover all the aspects of Astra; we hope you’ll receive everything you are searching for.

Advantages of Using Astra 

Mobile-Friendliness

Astra theme offers you mobile-responsive designs and configurations options that adapt to the screen of mobiles, tablets, and laptops, ensuring that your audience receives the best experience possible.

SEO- Friendliness

Your website will rank better with the help of Astra’s SEO Best practices. Besides, the theme features a built-in Schema markup responsible for helping search engines to understand what your site is all about. As a result, they will know how to display relevant results to the users.

Plugin Compatibility 

Astra’s free version features amazing Plugins such as WooCommerce. However, Astra Pro comprises many powerful plugins for styling and customization options.

Design and Customization

With Astra, you can tweak every aspect of your website, with no coding knowledge. You can create and customize a multitude of styles and layouts that meet your preferences.

You can select the color you desire on your product page, landing page, or homepage. Also, you can tweak the appearance of each element on your product page.

With its grid settings, you can present your products in a responsive grid style. There are also many options to customize your sidebar, header, and widgets for individual pages or the whole site.

Astra Free Vs Pro

According to Astra’s team, “Astra is Free now and Forever”. However, if you want access to exclusive features, there is some cost-efficient premium Astra theme version you can purchase.

Here are some things you receive from Astra Pro:

• An addition pre-made website demos
• Email Support
• Access to powerful Plugins such as easy Digital Downloads, LearnDash and LifterLMS
• Additional WooCommerce functionality like quick view, infinite scroll, Ajax Carts, 2- Steps Checkouts, etc.
• Access to developer Plugins like Convert Pro, WP Portfolio and Schema Pro
• Additional header customization like sticky, mega menu, and mobile headers
• More control over color and typography for the sidebar button, content section, footer and blog
• Additional layouts like excerpt content, infinite loading, masonry, and post pagination

Astra’s Key Features

Super-Fast Speed and Performance 

Astra was developed with one thing in mind-Speed. It’s one of the most lightweight WordPress themes in the market that delivers astonishing loading speeds.

While other WordPress themes require 300KB of resources, Astra requires only 50KB. The theme is so fast that it only requires 0.5 seconds to load. Also, it scores well on speed tests like Google Page Insights, GTmetrix, and Pingdom.

Instead of using jQuery, Astra developers use Vanilla JavaScript. JQuery can affect your website’s external speed optimization. You can also pair Astra with other speed and performance optimization to boost your website speed even further.

Read for Ecommerce

Making sure your theme supports WooCommerce is very important, especially if you are planning to sell your products online.

Luckily, Astra offers deeper integration with WooCommerce. It comes with unique features and a wide variety of customization options you can use to build online stores that meet your needs.

With the help of Astra’s WooCommerce integration, you can access Grid layouts for products, a quick display for product images, a drop-down shopping cart, infinite scrolling, various gallery options, and many interesting integrations.

Page Builder Integrations

Even though Astra works effectively with Beaver Builder and Elementor, it can still support other page builders.

Some of those page builders include:

• Divi
• Visual Composer
• Site Origin
• Thrive Architect
• Brizy
• Gutenberg

Pre-made Websites

Astra offers you over 100 pre-made website demos to help you create your site. All you have to do is to install the free Astra Starter Sites Plugin.

But hold that thought first……

Before you rush into selecting the website you like, Astra provides you with various page builders that you can use to set up your site from scratch. This is not something you get from other WordPress themes.

Once you select a page builder, you can access the Astra Starter Slides. Astra theme categorizes the slides into blogs, eCommerce, and business to make your selection process much easier.

After finding the template you like you can then import it and reduce the time you spend on building your site.

WordPress Customizer and Real-Time Changes

Astra’s real-time WordPress Customizer helps you in monitoring the changes you make to your website. You can view the changes in the preview panel in real-time, so you always know how your website performs before you can publish it.

While this feature is prevalent on many WordPress themes, Astra’s is different because it offers you an extensive collection of customization options.

For example, you can change how your sidebars look, activate breadcrumbs, and even make some tweaks to your blogs and featured images. In simple terms, you can globally customize your website to have a consistent look and feel.

Astra Pricing and Plans

Astra is a fermium theme. This means it’s free, but it also has paid options.

Astra Pro – $59

• All the Astra Pro features
• Over 20 free starter sites
• One to one email support
• Extensive training
• Unlimited site use.

Mini Agency Bundle – $279 (Special Price – $169)

• Astra Pros features
• 0ver 60+ free starter websites
• WordPress Portfolio
• The choice to select Add-ons for Elementor or Beaver Builder

Agency Bundle – $523 (Special Price – $249)

• All of Mini Agency Features
• 60 + Agency starter websites
• All developer plugins
• SkilUet Academy
• Any future Plugins.

 Final Verdict 

Astra is an exceptional, all-purpose theme used by both beginners and professional WordPress developers. Astra’s selection of customizable options and features will help you build any website you dream of.

Astra theme is super lightweight and delivers unparalleled performance, which means you will receive all the benefits of the theme while enjoying super-fast loading speeds.

Whether you’re on Free Version or Astra Pro, your users will still receive the best experience.