Here we compare Airi vs Astra, two very popular themes with a particularly high rating. Both themes have a pro version as well as a free version. Let’s quickly see which theme offers more value for money.
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.
Let’s continue this Airi vs Astra comparison with the Airi Theme.
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.
Airi vs Astra Conclusion
My opinion regarding Airi vs Astra: Any type of website can be built with both themes. Both themes load quickly and have beautiful demo websites. That said, it seems that both themes are practically the same, but that is not the case. Astra offers more of everything, and is better than Airi at everything. In addition, Astra offers a lot of features that are not in Airi. Astra is a much more developed and mature theme and the clear winner.