We compare The7 vs Astra, two very well-selling WordPress themes. Astra has a popular free version and a pro version, The7 only has a pro version. Let’s start with Astra without this meaning that it would therefore be a better theme.
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 The7 comparison with the The7 Theme.
The7 Theme
The7 Theme Ratings
This The-7 Theme Review will discuss all the positive and negative aspects of The 7. The7 was published in September 2013 by DreamTheme. This theme has been sold 269,297+ times up to today and has a rating 4.76 out 5 (8500 ratings on Themeforest). There are only very few themes that have a higher average rating.
The7 Theme Load Speed
The craze for fast themes started a few years ago when it was understood that fast-loading websites are more successful because visitors have very little patience. The fastest themes such as Astra are still the fastest, but in the meantime each theme has been provided with an update to make it load quickly, and so is The7.
The7 Theme Review: PageBuilder
The7 works perfectly with, in my opinion the best page builder for WordPress, Elementor. Without having to purchase the pro version, The7 provides you with a large number of pro functions such as the ThemeBuilder and a large number of additional elements.
Of course, the theme is 100% compatible with the Gutenberg editor and all its blocks. In addition, there are many demo websites built with Gutenberg.
But there is even a 3rd page builder in The7, the WP-Bakery page builder. As a bonus, this includes an extra plugin for WP-Bakery to significantly expand the number of widgets. And there are also many demo websites built with WP-Bakery. On the image above you can see all the extra plugins you get for free in The7 theme.
Build shops with The7
Even more amazing is that you have access to a real Woocommerce Builder. This allows you to style the pages of your webshop exactly as you had it in mind. In the past one had to be very good with HTML and that was a lot of work, but not anymore. The image above roughly shows how it works.
The7 Theme Demos
The number of 40+ demos is not spectacular, but these are well-built full site demos. We can say that other themes offer more demos, but in most cases much worse demos. The7 thus more than meets the requirements that we set in this review for demos or starter sites that can be installed with 1 click.
The7 Theme Review: Settings
One of the most impressive features of the The7 theme is the large number of settings that exceed your wildest wishes. Everything has been thought of and can be adjusted without technical knowledge. In the image below you can see the numbers that they specify themselves.
The7 Theme Review Conclusion
The7 is of course a fantastic theme and it is not for nothing that the second best-selling theme on Themeforest. I can recommend it 100% for both websites and shops. It does not have a free version, you will have to buy the pro version. As long as you are looking for a theme for only 1 websites, everything is okay, but if you have to provide multiple websites with a theme, so I prefer to buy Astra or Divi, these themes may be slightly better and can be used on unlimited websites.
Astra vs The7 Conclusion
Both Astra and The7 are very good themes. We only compare the pro versions as The7 does not have a free version. Still, I just want to say that Astra offers the best free WP theme out there. Since Astra offers different packages, that is also a difficult comparison. The7 is somewhat better if we compare it with Astra Pro, but I rate all Astra Bundles higher than The7. Note: Astra is always for unlimited websites and The7 only for 1 site.