Flatsome vs Astra

We compare two of the most popular themes for the construction of webshops of the moment here. Flatsome has only a pro version, Astra has as well a free- as a pro version. Flatsome vs Astra, which is the better theme? We start with Astra which does not mean it would be better.

The Astra Theme

The Astra Theme has been very popular for years. In other words, the free version of Astra is firmly in place on WordPress.org. In addition, Astra also has a very well-selling pro version which is mainly known for its beautiful demo websites that are pre-prepared for various page builders. Over a million websites currently run on Astra. Let’s start this Astra Theme review with its rating as I always do.

Astra's Rating 5/5

5 stars

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1 star

Below you can see the fantastic rating and comments that Astra gets from users. Where it says “Astra theme and Element” Elementor is of course meant, indeed a more than great combination to use Astra and Elementor together within 1 website. Obviously anyone giving a 1 star rating to the number one theme on WordPress.org has no clue about theme or works for the competition.

Astra Theme Review Demo Websites

Let’s go straight to one of the strongest points of the Astra Theme, namely the many demo websites. These demo websites, the so-called Starter Templates, are made to further embroider with your favorite page builder. The demos were made with Elementor, Beaverbuilder, Brizy and Gutenberg. Well, I’m not that impressed with the last one, but the others are 3 top page builders. This means that if one of these 3 is your favorite page builder, the Astra theme can be your favorite theme.

As seen above one can just choose for which page builder demo website will be shown. Astra has one of the best full website demo’s that I have ever seen in themes and plenty as for just elementor there should be like 180 different designs already.

astra theme review starter templates examples

Astra's Woocommerce Possibilities

The WP-Astra Theme was built from the start on having super fast loading times and it had to excel in the possibilities and beautiful designs for webshops and that intention has been successful. The options that Astra offers for E-commerce websites are unprecedented and practically surpass any other theme, including specialized Woocommerce themes.

Below I´ll show a few of the many features Astra offers for Woocommerce that make your webshop to a professional looking online store.

Infinite scroll

Off canvas sidebar

Quick view

The Astra Theme has about 15 such features for webshops. It simply has all the gadgets one could wish for.

Astra comes with Schema Mark Up

WP-Astra comes standard with Schema Mark Up which adds rich snippets to your articles. That way your articles will be displayed in Google’s search result in a more effective way as seen in the image below, with or without Schema. I have tried it on an HTML-website, and implementing Schema by hand is just to much work and errors will be made. Astra adds the snippets automatically and if your article changes, so will the Schema Mark Up.

Do you want someting even better than Astra’s basic Mark Up, then go for the more professional version of it:

Astra Speed

WP-Astra’s basic code is only 25kb which makes Astra one of the fastest themes out there, if not the fastest. Have a look at the images below, if necessary give them a click to enlarge them. On the left we see a speedtest done at GtMetrix with stunning results. On the right you see what one of the most famous SEO companies thinks of the speed of the Astra Theme.

Astra Theme Extra Info

If you are planning to set up a website with WP-Astra for teaching courses, it is good to know that the theme is fully compatible with Learndash and LifterLMS. In addition, Astra has an excellent SEO, is 100% responsive on all devices. It’s all too much to explain here in this review so I advise you to take a look at the Astra website itself.

Astra Theme Review Conclusion

The Astra Theme excels on several fronts, including speed, countless options for webshops, beautiful designs that can be installed with 1 click and that for 4 different page builders. In addition, Astra has built-in Schema as standard and is compatible with all commonly used plugins. This makes Astra one of the best-selling themes of the moment and I can recommend it to everyone, especially in combination with Elementor Pro.

Let’s continue this Astra versus Flatsome Review with the Flatsome Theme.

The Flatsome Theme

Flatsome is a WordPress theme that is totally specialized in E-commerce or building webshops. The theme works perfectly together with the Woocommerce plugin that is used by everyone today to create shops. This Flatsome Theme Review gives you a bird’s eye view of all its best features.

Flatsome Theme Review Studio

Apart from a single professional designer, there is really no one left who starts a website from scratch. Practically all themes (also free) offer a wide range of complete demo websites and many more prepared sections. The Flatsome theme is not left behind and now has 300+ pieces in its range. With no more than 1 click you can install such a design in your website and from there you start working on your own corporate identity. All you have to do is delete what you don’t want to use and replace the rest of the images and texts with your own.

Flatsome's Loading Speed

Flatsome has heavily improved the loading time of the theme with one of the latest upgrades. The alleged data shown in the image below seems a bit exaggerated to me and I have not checked. It is clear that the theme is fast. As you probably know, Google and visitors place great value on fast-loading websites.

Flatsome's UX Page Builder

The UX page builder was invented by the builders of Flatsome. And although it may not be the DiviBuilder or Elementor, this page builder works great and you will definitely like it. Watch the video below to understand a bit more about the UX Builder.

Woocommerce Features

Flatsome is a real Woocommerce theme and is full of professional gadgets that make every webshop a success. I can’t show everything in this Flatsome Theme review, those features below are just a part. If you like to see them all, check out Flatsome’s own website.

Woocommerce Product Pages

Flatsome comes with beautifull pre-designed product pages. With Flatsome it is also possible to use different styles with different products, as many as you want. There are few themes that offer such a wide range of Woocommerce pages, this feature is very nice.

Flatsome Shape Dividers

Divi was the first with Shape Dividers, then Elementor I think, now they all come with it and so is Flatsome. The best are still Divi’s. Of course I have nothing against the Shape Dividers, they are wonderful toys with which you can create beautiful borders between sections.

Flatsome's Headers

An impressive feature in Flatsome is the number of different headers that the theme makes available. Aside from the standard headers, there is also a header builder that allows you to customize every little detail in your chosen header. Below you can see a number of these headers.

Flatsome Review Elements

The Flatsome theme comes with a nice number of widgets in its UX-Builder. I say a nice number because of course we cannot compare this with the huge range that an Elementor page builder has to offer. Below are the main widgets in the image.

Flatsome Theme Review Conclusion

During this Flatsome Theme review I showed you the most striking features for me. We can safely say that Flatsome is a great theme for creating webshops. This is what it was made for from the start. The fact that it is also a corporate theme was only added later and for such websites I would certainly prefer to use a theme like Divi or possibly another good theme with the Elementor page builder.