Phlox and Astra are sold through different marketplaces and are therefore no direct competitors. Phlox vs Astra, 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 Phlox comparison with the Phlox Theme.
The Phlox Theme
As a matter of fact this website you are looking at right now, I built it with Phlox Premium and Elementor. I can tell you right away that this is a great theme, but we’re going through all the points of the theme so slowly. Phlox was launched back in 2013, a golden age for WP themes.
Phlox Themes' Rating
The Phlox Theme has a free version with a rating of 4.8 out of 5 as seen above. The premium theme has an average rating of 4.66 out of 5. With these figures, the Phlox theme is among the best rated themes on Themeforest.
Loading Speed
The Phlox theme has impressive loading times as can be seen below in the 4 completed tests. However, there are faster themes, such as Astra. Such fast loading times are always achieved with an elite cache plugin.
Phlox's Page Builder
Phlox is a so-called Elementor Theme, which means built to support Elementor. Building the website practically only happens with Elementor. What I needed Phlox for was a beautiful demo website from which I could start my site. The demos of Elementor Pro itself I found a bit disappointing.
160+ extra Widgets in Elementor
Purchasing Elementor Pro is made completely unnecessary by the many extra widgets offered by Phlox within the page builder, 160+ to be precise. An unprecedented number of extra widgets which offers practically unlimited possibilities.
A Second Page Builder
You also get the Bakery page builder as a tuned version with about 60 extra widgets in it by Phlox.
Building a Blog
We call the structure of this website a blog. If you click on “Blog” in the menu or on “Compare Themes” you will see the blog layout. There are dozens of settings what people do and don’t want to show in the items. My experience with the Phlox theme for blogs is very good, this site is like my baby everything works so well. So if you want to build a blog, Phlox is definitely a good choice.
Phlox offers a variety of layouts and options to help you become a professional blogger, or just to get started in the blogging world. You can do everything with blogging. Phlox uses best practices in typography design to ensure that content is easily readable on all devices. Phlox supports all types of blogging, including grid, masonry and timeline. It also covers layouts such as tile, land and classic.
Phlox Theme Review: Starter Sites
I just mentioned that I had selected Phlox on its beautiful demo websites, in total there are 190+. These come in different specializations such as blogs, shops, corporate and much more. The layouts are of extremely high quality. As far as I’m concerned, Phlox is even undervalued with its rating.
Reuse Sections
Being able to save and reuse sections at lightning speed is a great feature. It says “Exclusive” in the corner but there are many more themes that have this.
Phlox: Global Colors
The theme uses 3 basic colors that are used throughout the site. If you adjust it, it will automatically adjust across the entire site. Doesn’t seem like a real exclusive feature to me, but it’s certainly practical.
Headers and Footers
The Phlo theme offers a complete collection of options for both footers and headers. There will certainly be something to your liking for your website. You can make further adjustments to your chosen design with the Header & Footer Builder.
Phlox Theme Review Conclusion
I assume that you have received a very positive impression of Phlo by now, this is a great theme. I can’t copy all the information here, not 1 on 1. If your interest has been piqued, read on on their own website. As far as I’m concerned, Phlox is one of the better themes on Themeforest and highly recommended.
Astra vs Phlox Conclusion
I like Astra better, it is just way better overall. But also, the Phlox theme wants to see a separate expensive license for every website you want to build with it. This will quickly cost you a lot of money. You are better off with Astra or Divi that can be used on an unlimited sites and are also even better and more stable themes.