Astra WordPress theme is one of the best free themes you can find for a WordPress website. We will tell you why. We will do the comprehensive Astra WordPress theme review just for you.
What is Astra?
Crafted by the talented team of developers over at Brainstorm Force, Astra is one of the best multipurpose WordPress themes on the market. It strikes a rare balance between style and performance with flexible customization options and powerful integration with popular services and platforms.
The theme gives you access to a rich theme options panel paired with tons of pre-made layouts and compatibility with almost every popular page builder plugin.
Astra is a very simple and customizable theme developed by Brainstorm Force, that’ll make your life so much easier. Not only that – it is also very SEO friendly and fast. Made to work with various page builders, it provides options that will suit all your needs even if you don’t have any HTML knowledge.
Whether you own a make-up studio, want to invite guests to your wedding or create a co-working space, Astra has got you covered. With simple editing options that offer various possibilities, you can be sure that your website will look exactly the way you imagined it.
Astra WordPress Theme review
Now, let’s review the Astra theme.
Theme setup and plugin install
Installing Astra theme is fairly easy and can be done in a few simple steps:
- Download the .zip file from the theme website
- Choose whether you want the free option, Astra Pro or Agency Bundle
- Store the file on your computer
- On your WordPress admin page, go to Appearance -> Themes -> Add New -> Upload Theme, and choose your .zip file
- Activate the theme
To gain access to various pre-made sites build, you’ll also need to install the Astra Starter Sites plugin.
Astra WordPress theme Review: Theme Features
- Easy to use with clean admin interface
- Simple, yet beautiful design for various needs
- Dozens of pre-designed starter sites
- Customizable – edit all of its parts to be just like you want it
- SEO friendly
- Widget-ready
- Toolset integrated
- Extendible with Hooks
- Open Source, 100% GPL
- Compatible with WooCommerce and many other plugins
- Free, with Premium packages available
- Speed: Astra loads in less than half a second
- Lightweight – only needs around 50KB of resources
- Uses Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery
- Compatibility with all Page Builders
Beginner-Friendly Design Options
To get you started, the theme offers you its bundle of starter sites. It packs in over 100+ professionally designed premade website demos (made with Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy and Gutenberg each) that you can install on your website with a simple click.
It covers multiple niches and various design styles, so you are bound to find something that you like.
On top of that, the theme is compatible with almost every popular page builder plugin. Therefore, if you dislike certain details about the starter site you import, you can easily make tweaks in the layouts to fit your taste.
Customizing Astra
Astra can be downloaded from WordPress.org, or from directly within the themes area of your WordPress admin area.
The theme doesn’t force you to install any WordPress plugins to work, but you will need to install the Astra Starter Sites WordPress plugin if you want to import a design into your website (more on this later).
You’ll find the ‘Astra Options’ page under the WordPress appearance menu.
This page is more of a hub than a settings page, as all options for the theme are contained within the WordPress theme customiser.
You’ll find links to key options, as well as links to free and premium plugins that extend Astra, while this page also links to the Astra documentation area, Facebook group and contact page.
Astra WordPress theme review: Astra Starter Sites
The Astra Starter Sites WordPress plugin is referenced in the main Astra Options page on the right-hand side. This plugin is free to download.
Once you’ve activated it, you’ll see a new page in the appearance menu called ‘Astra Sites’.
You’ll be asked to choose your favourite page builder: Elementor, Beaver Builder, Gutenberg or Brizy.
If you select a design that uses, say, Gutenberg, you’ll need to have the Gutenberg page builder activated for it to work properly. This is because each design was created using page builder elements from a particular page builder plugin.
Agency Bundle Features
If you’re willing to pay $249 per year, you can be certain that your web agency will have all it takes to make the website as successful as possible. You’ll get everything from Astra Pro, plus a library of prebuilt websites and Astra’s top selling plugins, such as:
- Astra Premium Sites
- Convert Pro
- All-in-one Schema Pro
- Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder
- Addon for Elementor
- Any future plugins Astra comes up with
Conclusion
We love Astra as it is free fast and SEO friendly. What do you think? If you want a highly customized website, contact us.
Some of the questions asked
Is Astra free?
Yes. It is free. But, there is an agency bundle too.
Is Astra SEO friendly?
Yes, Astra is fully SEO friendly. It adds wp header and wp footer for better structured data.
Is Astra compatible with Woocommerce?
Yes. It is.
Does Astra support WPML?
Yes. It supports.