Minimog and Astra are both highly popular E-commerce themes. Both themes can be used for the construction of very nicely looking webshops. Minimog (Shopify) vs Astra (WordPress), 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
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 Astra vs Minimog comparison with the Minimog Theme.
The Minimog Theme
In this Minimog Theme review we will discuss the best and newest features of the Shopify version of the theme, not the WordPress version. This theme came on the market at the end of 2021 and has since taken it to the very top of the Shopify theme rankings.
Minimog Theme's Rating
When we talk about the best ratings on the Themeforest marketplace, we should certainly not forget the Minimog theme. An average rating of 4.98 out of 5 is of course hard to beat. With this, the theme immediately scores high, practically everyone who bought it is extremely satisfied with it.
Minimog's Loading Speed
Fast loading times are very important today. Visitors leave websites that don’t load fast enough without compassion. A theme is therefore more or less required to have a good loading time, Minimog has that as shown above.
70+ Stunning Homepage Demos
More than 70+ homepage demos, all shopping layouts of course. You have a wide choice of designs and they are built for different niches. Like all top themes, Minimog serves you well with demos.
Detailed Instruction Videos
A theme can have thousands of features, but you must also be able to work with it. The Minimog theme offers clear videos about practically everything you can think of. You can always continue working without having to ask the builders questions. At least, this is kept to a minimum by the videos.
Minimog Theme Review: Mobile First
Play the videos to see how certain features function flawlessly on mobile view. The Minimog theme is mobile first, in other words everything has been done to achieve perfection in operability, loading speed, and design for mobile phones. Nowadays many people shop on their mobile so this is quite important.
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Minimog's easy install + Try free with Foxkit app
Minimog is one of the few themes that you can really try installed before you spend your money. Of course, you lose a lot of time if the theme turns out not to be that great and you have to start over. The chance of this is very small, however, since the theme has an almost flawless rating.
Minimog's Features: In-Cart Offer
Minimog has many features that can bring you more sales. One of these is the In-Cart Offer feature with which you can recommend extra products in the customer’s shopping cart in a very simple way, without technical knowledge. Watch the 1 minute video below.
More Features
Minimog is full of features. Watch this small video for an overview of the many features or go directly to the Minimog site where you will get all the information about it.
Nice variation in Shop pages
Minimog is really well set up for building a professional looking website easily and quickly. You can simply choose the layout for your shop pages and the choice is huge.
Nice variation in Product pages
And the same goes for the product pages. A wide choice of layouts that have been well thought out. If you ever want something different later on, it’s just a few clicks away. WordPress themes nowadays have an E-commerce Builder with which you can organize everything yourself how you want, but for Shopify this is already a luxury.
Minimog Theme Review Conclusion
I’m going to end this review for Minimog. I assume that you got a very good impression of the theme, just like I did. Of course, it all started with the very good rating, so we’re not the only ones who are impressed. The theme has everything and much more to set up a great webshop. In addition, its installation is extremely simple and fast. Recommended. Read on on there own website.
Minimog vs Astra Conclusion
These themes are both great for E-commerce. As good as Minimog is, the Astra theme is simply one of the very best themes available for building webshops. It is really hard to make a decision, I give Astra a slight edge. For any type of website other than web shops, I obviously prefer Astra. Of course WordPress is a different CMS system, so if you have a preference for WordPress or Shopify that will also have to be taken into account when deciding which theme is more suitable for you.