Here we compare Inspiro 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 Inspiro vs Astra Review with the Inspiro Theme.
The Inspiro Theme
Let’s start this Inspiro theme review. Inspiro is a WordPress theme that focuses on video and photo editing. It has a modern design. Inspiro has many features, including a fullscreen area for Vimeo, YouTube, and self-hosted video backgrounds, Page Builder integration, and is ideal for displaying your video portfolio. The theme can be used with WooCommerce as well as popular Page Builders like Beaver Builder and Elementor.
Inspiro's Rating
Since the last time I wrote a review for Inspiro, there are now a lot more people who gave a rating. However, the average remains high, 4.7 out of 5 is a very good rating. Especially since Inspiro is very focused on video features, something that perhaps not everyone understood immediately and therefore some give a very bad rating.
Video Functions
As for the special video features that Inspiro offers, below is a list of features for the free version and the pro version, because there are big differences between them.
You can see that all video features are in the pro version, but nothing in the free version. If you are looking for a free theme with video functions, we can say that Inspiro is not suitable. What the pro version offers is beautiful, but don’t be alarmed by the price for a license of 79 dollars per website per year. For this you have practically the best theme there is for WP, the Divi theme. And not for 1 website, but for unlimited sites.
Video Backgrounds
As shown below, videos in the header can be used as background. Other great features are video on hoover, videos in portfolio items and video lightboxes. One of the best features is the video autoplay on mobile and tablets.
Portfolio with video BGs
Below is an example of a Portfolio page design. You can hover over each item to see a preview of the video or image.
Inspiro & Elementor
Inspiro theme review: Demos
The Inspiro theme has a series of very nice demos and for various niches. Demos or also called starter sites can be installed with 1 click via the backend of your WordPress. Inspiro has a small 35 demos for the free and pro version together, including demos for shops and of course photography.
Inspiro: Headers
Inspiro doesn’t have a real header builder like the top themes but with 1 click you can install other types of headers. Different headers on different pages, everything is possible.
Image/Video overlay
Another wonderful tool is the gradient overlay customizer pictured below. This is one of the features that immediately struck me while writing this Inspiro theme review. You can create beautiful effects and give your website a professional look.
Inspiro Theme Review Conclusion
As the last part of this Inspiro theme review, I give my overall opinion. The free version of Inspiro has virtually no features and I would never use it. The pro version is good for website photographers, film makers and other people who want to use videos all over their site. The pro-theme can be called downright expensive, so I have my reservations about that too.
Inspiro vs Astra Conclusion
Despite the fact that Inspiro Pro is a fantastic theme for everything that has to do with photo and video, it can of course not compete with the Astra Theme. If we also take into account that the Inspiro theme is much more expensive than the Astra theme, the choice is made quickly, I assume. With regard to the free versions of the themes, the differences are even greater. Astra Free is a topper and Inspiro Free is not recommended.