We compare 2 of the most popular themes for website creation of the moment here. Astra has a free and a pro version, Porto only a pro version. Porto vs Astra, which is the better theme? We start with Porto which does not mean it would be better.
The Porto Theme
Porto ThemeThe WordPress version of the Porto theme was released in 2015. This is in response to the more than popular HTML5 theme of the same name, which has been around since 2013. It didn’t do them any harm because the WP version now ranks in the top 5 on the infamous Themeforest marketplace. In this Porto Review I quickly show you the most important features and gadgets of Porto.
Porto Theme: Ratings
The Porto Theme itself states that it has a 4.92 out of 5 rating, but as you can see below, it is even a little higher. This rating is good, but it must be said that Porto’s direct competitors (sold through the same marketplace) also score these kinds of figures. Those are all fantastic themes by the way. This rating has been built up over the period of 8 years, so they have constantly been doing well.
Porto Theme Review Demos
A total of 123 demo websites is a large number. It’s always nice to have a wide choice of different designs so that’s great. As you can see below, a large part of it is for web shops (42). There are demo dedicated to Gutenberg, Elementor and WP-Bakery page builder. That means you can immediately continue working on it or adjust things with those page builders.
Porto Theme Review: Woocommerce
Of course I can’t show 123 demos here, but you can see some of them in the image below. You can of course view the rest on their own site. The layout in the image below are all demos for shops, of which there are currently 42 in total. The designs are of high quality. This, in combination with the many features that Porto has for shops, makes it a breeze to build a beautiful professional webshop.
Porto Theme's Page Builders
I mentioned it before, Porto works with 3 different page builders and demos are also available for that. We are talking about the Elementor, the WP-Bakery and the Gutenberg editors.
Porto Theme's Elements
There are many more elements, but I don’t want to show them all here, below you can see a good selection from the range. The number of elements can easily be expanded even further with addon plugins that both Elementor and WP-Bakery have available from third parties in abundance.
Porto Theme Review: Speed
Of course, the Porto Theme can be loaded quickly in all browsers. Very important nowadays since without a fast website you will not be found well in Google, and visitors would leave your website early. Therefore make sure that you always have one of the best cache plugins installed.
Porto Theme Review: Library
Porto Studio is the name of the template library, filled with section, calls-to-actions and more. You can build pages at lightning speed by loading individual sections into your design. It is also possible to grab sections of the complete demo websites that you like.
Porto's Page HeaderBuilder
In the video below you can see how quickly you can work with the page header builder. It offers unlimited possibilities to style your header exactly as you had in mind. Of course, also use the section from the librarian that I just showed you. Click op de Play Button!
Porto Theme Review Conclusion
Cool that you read my Porto theme review to the end. As a web designer I have both the HTML and the WordPress version of Porto in my arsenal. The Porto theme is simply one of the best themes for building shops, although there are quite a lot of them these days. The theme has no real shortcomings and you can also build other types of websites with it, although I would certainly prefer Divi or Astra for that, which offer much more value for money with the unlimited site usage policy.
Let’s continue this Porto vs Astra comparison with the Astra Theme.
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
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'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.
Astra vs Porto Conclusion
First of all, thank you for reading my Astra vs Porto Review to the end. Astra and Porto are both excellent themes for building shops. Both themes have been specially designed for this and are a great success. When it comes to other types of websites, I prefer Astra. It also plays a role in this that Astra may be used on enumerable sites and Porto requires an extra license for each separate website.