Astra is a free WordPress theme with excellent speed, features, simplicity and with extensive features.
Looking for an easy to use and fast loading theme?
Are you a non-technical blogger that doesn’t love to code?
Want to customize the theme without writing a single line of code?
Here comes Astra Theme.
Astra can make your website look incredibly beautiful with a few clicks.
There are in fact some premium packages that make Astra a much better theme. If you are looking for some additional features that Astra offers, go with Astra Pro
Overall ratings of Astra theme,
- Ease of use – 99%
- Value to customers – 99%
- Reliability – 99%
- Support – 99%
- Speed – 99%
- Overall rating – 99%
So, Astra is providing so much value to it’s a customer along with so beautiful themes.
Key features of Astra Theme:
- Its focus on speed.
- Very easy to configure.
- It’s compatible with all WordPress page builders.
- It has powerful add on packages.
- WooCommerce support is also provided.
- Templates are ready-made so you can use from there.
Background Knowledge:
Astra theme was released in 2017, a newbie in the market but wait don’t think that it’s developed by a new developer.
In fact, it’s developed by a well known WordPress company, Brainstorm Force.
But Astra theme is still working really well and not allowing big fishes to eat them!
Astra theme is super lightweight, easy to use and is made compatible to work with different page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Gutenberg, etc.
The Astra theme even comes with a free version, as well as a pro version with more features and functionalities.
Let’s have a look at its incredible features:
Lightweight and built for speed:
Everyone who owns a website wants their website to be super speedy and I’m amazed that Astra theme is designed with a good structure as well as speed.
Well, a lot of theme developers just write “good speed” to get visitors to download their theme and later they find out it was just a PHRASE!
But, let me tell you Astra doesn’t compromise on providing value to their customers and that’s why they are providing good speed as well.
- Loads under 50kb.
- They get high grades in all page speed tests
- They have coded everything they needed themselves and included it in the theme as well (no jQuery).
Integration with different page builder:
Yes, Astra theme is designed in such a manner that they are compatible with every page builder on WordPress.
Mostly developer code from scratch and now I think it’s waste of time as WordPress provides us a lot of plugins to make our work easier.
Especially, page builders helping you to create Website in a few hours!
Astra is developed in such a way that it works hand to hand with different page builders like,
- Elementor
- Beaver Builder
- Visual Composer
- Divi Builder
- Site Origin
Actually pages without,
- Header
- Sidebars
- Footers
Are pretty simple so you can make use of those that come from different page builders.
Astra with their pro plugin by allowing you to place Elementor elements in the header easily.
Some theme doesn’t allow it but with Astra and Elementor you can do it easily.
Update November 2020 : Now you can design header and footer in Astra Theme
Library of Built-in Website:
If you start from a built-in website it is not going to save your time if you don’t know the perks of designing.
Don’t worry, Astra comes with built-in templates that help you in designing your website as per your choice.
They are easily imported as soon as you have uploaded it on WordPress. Simple, just add a Strater Site plugin and you will get a menu showing all the sites library.
All the above-shown themes are made either with Elementer or Beaver Builder so you can easily use them.
But look at the options as well!
SEO Friendly:
Astra is also making your website SEO friendly by adding a large amount of schema related to SEO.
The schema is a small piece of code that helps SEO to know what exactly your website is going to show to the visitors.
Customization without coding:
Yes, you hear it right, you can customize the theme without coding! All thanks to Astra Theme.
Years ago, it was a really hard task to create any website as you have to code every single element and if he doesn’t have a coding background then it’s nearly impossible for him to develop a website.
But, today websites are created by all types of people with or without coding background.
Astra themes can be easily customized without doing any coding using configurations options in various section of the templates.
Layouts:
Side layouts can be enabled easily using Astra pro which gives control to the user to choose from,
- Boxed
- Full width
- Max Width
- Padded
- Fluid Layouts
Boxed:
Boxed layout has padding around the wrapper with background applied to it and you can set custom background color.
Boxed layout appears individual containers and widgets in boxes
You can easily change layout setting go to Appearance > Customize > Global > Container
Note: wrapper consists of header, content, sidebar, and footer
Full Width:
The full-width layout doesn’t have padding around the main wrapper that shows the content without padding and background.
“Full Width / Contained” layout shows content and sidebar side by side in a single container.
Go to Appearance > Customize > Global > Container
Max Width:
Max-width layout provides settings to change top and bottom margin. This layout has set the main wrapper of the site to a certain minimum length.
Padded Layout:
Padded layout provides options to change padding across edges of the website. Padded is just the full-width site layout with padding option.
Fluid Layout:
Just as the name suggests — when fluid site layout is enabled, the entire website goes edge to edge of the browser, on all screen sizes.
If you have a website where you have a lot of content; for example blog, online magazine, or for any reason, if you need your entire website including header, footer, and main content area to span across the entire browser on all screen sizes, the Fluid Site Layout is for you.
Header and Footer:
The pro version also provides various options to edit header and footer.
Astra pro has a custom layout option. The custom layout provides layouts like header, footer 404 pages, and hooks. The purpose of layouts is to show pieces of code like Html in a 404 page or any part of the page, run scripts, or add CSS file in the header and footer, etc.
Typography:
You are provided with a large range of fonts along with a custom font plugin so, you can easily choose the font and its respective size.
Astra provides typography options that help you to change font-family, size and weight of the font of paragraph and heading are present in the website. Astra has global typography options as well which helps you to change typography globally and it reflects change in the entire website.
you can find settings under Appearance > Customize > Global > Typography
Color and Background:
Don’t worry if you want to add the color of your own choice to your theme.
Astra theme is so adaptable that you can easily add the color of your own choice to the background.
Astra theme provides a base color option inside global color in which you can change text color theme color and background color or image globally.
From the WordPress dashboard navigate to Appearance > Customize > Global > Colors.
Astra theme discounts:
There is currently no discount or coupons available for Astra theme. But it would be nice if they come up with some discounts later in the future.
Pricing strategy free vs pro:
Astra theme mainly comprises of two versions,
- Free
- Pro
The free version is limited in many ways whereas the pro version unlocks the developer from the cage of limits and he can develop the website using almost all the features of Astra.
So, I would suggest that one should go with the Pro version while developing a website as he/she will have a lot of privilege then.
Astra pro Features:
Why best for Projects:
Astra theme is best and always on the first choice of developers for designing any project because it’s easy to configure and provide value to their customers.
And I believe who so ever will use Astra theme after reading this article will also agree with me.
Good luck!
1 comment
Nate
Astra made my site a bit slow. Id delete so much and switching theme helped. Hopefully theres speed updates to Astra and Elementor.