Here are two of the most widely used WordPress themes to build websites. Both Blocksy and Airi offer a pro- or free version. Blocksy or Airi? Which theme is better? Airi is not necessarily better because we are starting with it.
The Airi Theme
This Airi theme review will focus on the key features. This theme was created by aThemes and featured on more than 20,000 websites. I have had positive experiences with another theme that was created by aThemes, named Sydney. I suppose Airi has more or less the same to offer. Airi is in the first place a theme that should create great webshops and is easy to understand for beginners and pros.
Airi Theme Review: Ratings
Below you can see on the 2 images the rating of Airi Pro and that of Airi Free. The Airi Free rating can be found on WordPress .org and the other rating comes from the Notorious Themeforest marketplace where the theme has recently been sold as well. However, it is recommended that you just buy on your own site if you intend to.
Airi Free Rating
Airi Pro Rating
Airi Theme: Demo Websites
The vast majority of Airi’s demo websites are intended for E-commerce purposes, in other words to build webshops with them. I give below with the images a few examples of the demo websites for different niches. The images can be clicked to view them larger and square. All shops were built with the Woocommerce plugin.
Airi Fashion Demos
Airi Furniture Demos
Airi Review: Loading Speed
The Airi Theme is a very fast loading theme, which is not surprising because we call it minimalistic, which has fast loading times as a feature. Below in the image you can see a test done via GtMetrix, a renowned speed test. If you are looking for a super fast loading theme, check Astra, the fastest theme for WordPress that has a lot to offer at the same time.
Airi Review: Page Builders
Airi Review: Header Lay-outs
Below I show you 3 different headers but the Airi theme offers a total of 20+ Header Layouts that you can install in your website with 1 click. Further adjustments to the header can then be made. I’m not going to show it all in this Airi Review, but Airi also has 12+ portfolio layouts and 8+ team layouts.
Airi Review: Blog Lay-outs
We already know that Airi primarily focuses on building shops, but Airi can do much more. For those of you who blog often and want to build a good site for it, it’s good to know that Airi offers different layouts for blogs. I wouldn’t be so quick to use Airi for it myself, but it’s certainly possible. A good theme for blogs is of course Divi.
Airi Theme Review: Settings
Practically all settings for the Airi theme are controlled via the standard WordPress Customizer. Most themes now make use of this, which makes the settings well-arranged. Think of settings for the header, your blog, the footer, sidebar, the shop, copyright, font settings and so on.
Airi Theme Review Conclusion
Thank you so much for reading my Airi Theme Review for the year. Airi is capable of a lot. Even in the free version, the demo layouts look great. Airi can be used to build any kind of website. You can access all themes from AThemes for a bit more than one theme. As Divi shows, memberships often offer more value than just one theme. Airi operates great in combination with the Elementor page builder.
Let’s continue this Airi versus Blocksy comparison with the Blocksy Theme.
The Blocksy Theme
This Blocksy Theme Review will quickly explain why it is such an amazing theme. This theme can be used for building websites, blogs, and shops. This theme works flawlessly with Gutenberg. But it also works great together with all well-known WordPress pagebuilders like Divi or Elementor. Let’s have a look the free- and pro versions of Blocksy.
Blocksy's Rating
Blocksy has a free and a pro version. Both are immensely popular and receive top ratings. WordPress.org blocksy’s rating shows that all the raters gave 5 stars, with only 1 other rater giving 4 stars. It is difficult to get a better average rating than the one shown by Blocksy Theme.
Blocksy Theme's Loading Speed
The Blocksy Theme scores insanely well on every renowned speed test the internet has to offer. You can tune the theme yourself extra for speed by using a good cache plugin in it. That is always recommended for any theme, as well as using CDN if your website focuses on traffic from multiple countries.
Blocksy Demos
It is always important for a theme to have a reasonable collection of demos, also called start sites. Nobody wants to build a site from scratch these days. People prefer to set up a demo to be able to work much faster. Blocksy offers a great collection of starter sites which is totally awesome. If you hover over the different demos on their site, you can see which page builders they can be edited with. Usually that’s for Gutenberg and Elementor.
4 Different pagebuilders
Not everyone has the same page builder as their favorite. However, the Blocksy Theme is suitable for almost everyone as it works perfectly with no less than 4 different page builders: Gutenberg, Brizy, BeaverBuilder and Elementor. My preference is for Elementor, an insanely good page builder.
Blocksy Header-Builder
We used to mess around with the headers and HTML knowledge was certainly needed to get the header exactly the way you wanted it. For a few years now, good themes have been provided with header builders that make styling the header a piece of cake. A young theme like Blocksy also immediately has a very good header builder.
Blocksy Footer Builder
What goes for both the header and footer builder is that you can build multiple different headers or footers and use them on different pages. The design possibilities are practically unlimited.
Blocksy Woocommerce Webshop
Blocksy has good demos for webshops and has a lot of great options that make your shop look really professional. Above you can see some of these options like Quick View, Floating Cart, Wishlist, Search by SKU and more.
Blocksy Theme Review Conclusion
This Blocksy Theme review shows that the theme has impressive options. This includes the 4 page builders that can be used with the corresponding demos. The demos themselves are of good quality and there are about 25 of them, a nice number. Even the free version is very good and offers many options that are improved a bit in the pro version. Blocksy is definitely recommended and it is not surprising that it has a practically flawless rating.
Blocksy vs Airi Conclusion
Here’s my opinion at the end of this Blocksy vs Airi test. As far as loading time is concerned, these themes are approximately the same. Airi’s demo designs come in larger numbers, made with Elementor, and the layouts are nicer. Blocksy is a very good theme, especially as a free version, but Airi just does it better. Winner is Airi.