TheGem and Astra are sold through different marketplaces and are therefore no direct competitors. TheGem 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 TheGem comparison with the TheGem Theme.
TheGem Theme
TheGem has been around since the end of 2016 and has been around for a while. Many of the best-selling themes on Themeforest came out around this time. In the corner of my eye I quickly saw that the theme comes with 2 page builders, which is beautiful. Let’s start quickly with this review.
TheGem's Rating
An average rating of 4.86 out of 5 is very high. On the Themeforest marketplace, the highest rating of the Impreza Theme is 4.89 if I remember correctly. So very satisfied buyers, we can expect something from this theme.
TheGem's Loading Speed
All top themes load quickly today, and no theme can be left behind without losing sales. The results shown below from a GtMetrix speedtest for TheGem, gives a 98% score. Certainly not bad, but many themes score 100 and also for “Structure” the score is better, but there are competitors with better scores. These kinds of high scores are always achieved with a good cache plugin.
Two Page Builders included
TheGem Blocks
TheGem Blocks is basically a database of ready-made blocks, sections, that you can use anywhere on your website. The number of 500+ is very large. Only the best themes offer this kind of service. In addition, TheGem also offers full site demos in all kinds of niches.
Full Website Demos
Without counting them, TheGem has at least 150 full site demos. You can put a complete website on your domain in one go and you can adjust everything to your own style with your favorite page builder.
Portfolios
TheGem is also the right place for portfolios. It’s not a special portfolio theme, but TheGem is all-round. Below is a small example of a beautiful 4-column layout. The theme has 20+ different portfolio and gallery styles.
More Styles: Blog, Widgets, Headers
As you can see below, TheGem has made a beautiful index with what they have to offer in this area. People, this is a complete theme suited for any type of website.
TheGem's Header- & Footer Builder
You can build your header yourself without any technical knowledge with everything you want on it and in it. It won’t cost you hours either, the header and footer builder in TheGem works very quickly and everything is 100% understandable.
Webshops with TheGem
The latest version of TheGem comes with 6 completely new full demo websites. This is in addition to the large number of demos that were already available for shops, of course. A good theme works perfectly with Woocommerce, has all possible professional options for shops and offers countless shopping demos. TheGem has it all.
Woocommerce Builder
The TheGem also features a Woo Builder that allows you to customize product pages and pages such as check out and cart without having to know anything about it.
Premium Sliders included
I personally think they are a bit out of fashion, but other designers are still very enthusiastic about them, Sliders. If you like a header with spectacular slideshows, it’s good to know that TheGem has 2 of the best slider plugins in it for free.
TheGem Review Conclusion
There is of course much more to tell about TheGem, read more on their own site if you are interested in more info. As far as I’m concerned, TheGem is a great theme, especially if you use Elementor, my favorite page builder. The builders of the theme have thought of everything, no important things are missing and the theme loads very quickly. Recommended.
TheGem vs Astra Conclusion
I like Astra better, it is just way better overall. But also, the TheGem 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.