We compare Sydney vs Airi. These two very popular themes were both made by the guys at aThemes. A six-person theme that designs fantastic themes. Let’s quickly see what these themes have to offer.
The Sydney Theme
In this Sydney theme review I will quickly show you the best features of this popular theme. The Sydney theme is made by aThemes, a company that only develops good themes. It is therefore certainly not surprising that the theme has a very good rating. Let’s start with that right away…
Sydney's Rating 4.9/5
In the image below you can see that the numbers Sydney gets are more than good. The average rating is 4.9 out of 5, with which the theme scores in the top compared to other themes. Sydney has a free and a pro version, both versions are discussed here.
Sydney Theme Speed
Having a fast loading website is a must these days. Visitors stay longer on your site and you are found better in Google. That is why themes are becoming faster and faster in recent years, otherwise they will not sell well. With Sydney you can take a deep breath because the theme is one of the fastest sites out there.
Sydney Theme's Demo Websites
Six months ago I wrote an article about Sydney for another website of mine. I see that in that short time, 8 extra demos have been added. The Sydney demo websites are well constructed and very well maintained.
Sydney Theme & Webshops
The number of demos for webshops is still 2, they should work on that as soon as possible in my opinion, that is below average. The standard Sydney shopping theme is beautifully minimalistic and can be used for just about anything. A good shop can certainly be built with Sydney, because all possible shopping features are available so that shops look professional and have all the gadgets such as quick view, ajax cart and wishlist.
If my theme were recommended by Elementor, I would also put it on the site everywhere. This gives a lot of confidence to the theme because that means something. It also means that the theme will work perfectly with the Elementor page builder.
Sydney Theme comes with Schema
More and more sites have Schema built in as it offers great benefits for your site when it comes to being found in Google. The Sydney theme also has this. Rich snippets help Google understand your pages better and often display them in search results in special ways. If you are a Schema enthusiast, check out Schema Pro which I also use on this website.
Sydney Theme Integrations
A theme is usually automatically compatible with most plugins, but there are some commonly used more complicated plugins that definitely require theme customization. The Sydney theme is completely prepared for these plugins. Think, for example, of the Google AMP plugin, which is free and necessary to offer Accelerated Mobile Pages. Other Plugins are Polylang, WPML and LMS. Sydney has so much more to offer then I can explain in this review.
Sydney Theme Review Conclusion
Sydney Theme review, my opinion: The Sydney theme is recommended by Elementor for a reason, it is a very nice theme to work with. That applies to the free and pro versions. The pro versions have a standard price for good themes, $69. You can use the theme on an unlimited number of sites for this. However, an even better offer is $99 for all themes from aThemes. You immediately have the popular Botiga and Airi theme + about 20 less well-known themes.
Let’s continue this Airi vs Sydney 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 Sydney Conclusion
My opinion regarding Sydney vs Airi: These are both great themes as a free version and even better as a pro version. Both load quickly, have nice designs, everything works properly and they work perfectly with Elementor. Sydney and Airi are extremely versatile. You can build beautiful shops with Airi and Sydney. These 2 themes come from the same stable and can be purchased together with another 20 themes for only 99 dollars a year. That seems like the best deal to me.