Websites’ design, functionalities, and appearance are completely related to the theme and plugins you use. While battling to find the best one, GeneratePress and Astra are mostly recognized and selected among thousands of WordPress themes. Their competitive advantages and strengths make you wonder which one is the most prominent choice.
Hence, in this blog, we’ll discuss in-depth their performance, user interface, integrations, prices, etc. to help you select the best WordPress theme for your site. Let’s start diving into a detailed comparison of these two WordPress themes.
Table of Contents
GeneratePress vs Astra: Brief Comparison
Before diving into their detailed comparison, let’s go through their brief difference between GeneratePress and Astra:
| Features | GeneratePress | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Separate Block theme | ✅ | ❌ |
| Ask Me Anything | ❌ | ✅ |
| WooCommerce | ✅ | ✅ |
| LearnDash | ❌ | ✅ |
| LifterLMS | ❌ | ✅ |
| Easy Digital Downloads | ❌ | ✅ |
| Support Forum | ✅ | ❌ |
| Active Users | 600,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Five-star reviews | 1300+ | 5500+ |
| Language Support | 60+ | 45+ |
GeneratePress vs Astra: Overview
GeneratePress and Astra are the names of two renowned themes in the WordPress ecosystem. They might look similar and seem to possess the same functionalities at first glance. But, despite their similarities, GeneratePress and Astra have respective unique features that make them apart, assisting you in picking the best WordPress theme.
Thus before thoroughly analyzing their strengths and weaknesses to figure out the right theme, let’s have a look at their basic overviews:
GeneratePress:
GeneratePress is a straightforward WordPress theme that is available in classic and block themes. The classic theme is called GeneratePress and the block one is called GenerateBlocks. It won the hearts of 600,000+ WordPress users leaving 1300+ 5-star reviews on WordPress.org. However, its block version has 200,000+ active users with 100+ 5-star reviews. GeneratePress is also available in over 60 languages.
Astra:
Astra is a more popular WordPress theme than GeneratePress currently used by over 1 million users. Its friendly interface and robust features motivate users to share positive feedback on WordPress.org which crosses 5.5 thousand positive reviews. Though it doesn’t have a block version like GeneratePress, it’s fully compatible with Gutenberg Editor. Additionally, Astra includes all the features that you might need to create a full-fledged website including a mega menu, header, footer, sidebar, related posts, etc.
Feature Analysis
Both themes have free and premium features for personal or business sites. Although Astra is more appropriate for free users as its freemium version is more featureful than GeneratePress. Let’s learn in-depth about these two WordPress themes:
GeneratePress:
Whether you need a block theme, classic theme, or cloud, GeneratePress covers all. This WordPress theme is specially created to support broad niche audiences including block or classic users. Its extensive compatibility with page builders and plugins makes it even more smooth and convenient to work with.
Additionally, GeneratePress is a lightweight, responsive, and speed-optimized theme that also comes with features like sidebar layout, design control, sticky navigation, mobile header, etc. Hence, GeneratePress stands as a powerful addition to website customization along with page builders.
Astra:
Astra is a widely used WordPress theme that needs less than 50KB of resources and a 0.5-second loading time. Starting from header and footer, design control, and blog layout to global settings, Astra has options for every little and big customization. Also, its SEO features and builder compatibility are highly notable.
Besides, like GeneratePress, Astra’s freemium version is not that feature-limited. If you compare these two themes then, Astra’s freemium version is more logical and satisfactory to work with. On the other hand, its premium version unlocks more features, resulting to offer greater opportunities for crafting stunning websites.
User Interface & Friendliness
No doubt both themes provide a friendly interface but still, there are some differences between the two. These differences also help you to make the final decision regarding selecting the finest WordPress theme. Here is how they differentiate each other in terms of interface and user-friendliness:
GeneratePress:
The free version of GeneratePress doesn’t offer as much as Astra. It doesn’t provide starter templates in the freemium version. Only a premium one comes with this feature. That’s why you need to start everything from scratch while using the free plugin. However, its customization options are a bit more friendly than Astra as you will find different options from the drop-and-down menu. Therefore, despite of not including starter templates, GeneratePress still has this customization privilege for their users.
Astra:
On the other hand, Astra’s freemium version has starter templates that allow you to craft your complete website in minutes. You’ll find 280+ template variations in Astra’s starter template plugin. Just you need to pick one and customize it according to your preferences.
Again, Astra promotes a real-time editing interface where you can view every change that takes place. This feature allows you to confidently bring changes to your site with a preview option. Thus, Astra lets you customize sites with ease.
Performance & Speed
Performance and speed are the two most important metrics to identify theme effectiveness. Before opting for any WordPress theme, you must check its performance. So, here we’ll analyze the speed of two sites built with GeneratePress and Astra:
GeneratePress:
First, we created a new site that doesn’t have any plugins installed and then, added the GeneratePress theme to it. After activating the theme, we tested it with PageSpeed Insights. We got almost the same performance insights for both themes.
On mobile devices, performance was 100 percent similar to the desktop. However, other metrics like First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, and Speed Index were different, respectively 1s, 1.1s, and 1s.
On the contrary, First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, and Speed Index were respectively 0.3s, 0.3s, and 0.4s for desktop. This means GeneratePress performs better on desktop.
Astra:
Likewise doing the same with Astra, we’ve received 100% performance analytics, just First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, and Speed Index are slightly declined than GeneratePress.
And, on desktop, its performance deteriorates more than GeneratePress, indicating First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, and Speed Index are respectively 0.3s, 0.4s, and 0.5s. So, the performance of GeneratePress is somewhat better than Astra according to the data of PageSpeed Insights.
Compatibility & Integration
Your complete website design and customization will fall if your chosen theme doesn’t provide you with the compatibility and integrations you need. That’s why here, we’ll compare GeneratePress and Astra based on these two aspects:
GeneratePress:
GeneratePress has great compatibility with recognized page builders such as Beaver Builder, and Elementor. It is seamlessly integrated with WooCommerce. Also, GeneratePress finely works with all the bug-free and rightly coded plugins. However, the list of its integrations is not as long and generous as Astra.
Astra:
Astra’s compatibility and integrations satisfy the users as it greatly supports them. For example, working with all admired builders such as Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, etc. gives a pleasing experience. Again, its WooCommerce support is praise-worthy which facilitates creating the quick view, off-canvas sidebar, dropdown cart, etc.
Further, Astra has great support for course builders such as LifterLMS and LearnDash. Sadly, these integrations and levels of compatibility are not available in GeneratePress which makes Astra a more reasonable choice.
Customer Support & Community Resources
GeneratePress and Astra include helpful customer support and community resources for their users. Let’s check out which one is ahead in terms of customer support and community resources:
GeneratePress:
GeneratePress has a support forum from where you can find general and advanced queries with solutions. If you’re a free user then, you can only check the queries available in the support forum. You won’t be able to post anything on the forum as this feature is only for premium users.
Besides, free subscribers can post queries on WordPress.org that might take days to get answers. Furthermore, its Facebook community is smaller than Astra, counting 11k members. Still, GeneratePress has full documentation support for its users.
Astra:
Astra offers a support ticket feature to freemium and premium users for claiming assistance. However, the response rate is far quicker for premium subscribers. Paid users receive support within 24 hours. On the other hand, the free users get support within 2-3 working days.
Astra also has an “Ask Me Anything about Astra” option where you can submit your queries. It’s a resourceful and well-documented WordPress theme. Additionally, its community is huge around 61k users where you can submit your queries and get solutions.
Pricing Plans
GeneratePress and Astra share competitive pricing for users. They provide diverse package options according to their user demands. Thanks to these subscription plans, you can choose the one that is suitable for your needs.
Let’s check all the subscriptions available in GeneratePress and Astra:
GeneratePress
GeneratePress has a bundle pack where all the individual products are available in a yearly package such as GeneratePress, GenerateBlocks, and GenerateCloud.
| Price/Bundle | GeneratePress One |
|---|---|
| Yearly | $149 |
However, these products are also individually available in yearly subscription that you can avail directly from the pricing page.
| Subscription/Products | GP Premium | GenerateBlocks Pro | GenerateCloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly | $59 | $99 | $99 |
Astra
Astra’s pricing plan varies on the number of websites you use. These plans are available for 1, 10, and 1000 websites. The higher the number the more expensive the plan gets.
Here are the pricing plans for Astra’s Annual and Lifetime subscriptions for one site:
| Subscription/Plans | Astra Pro | Essential Toolkit | Business Toolkit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual | $49 | $79 | $149 |
| Lifetime | $199 | $399 | $599 |
⭐️ Related blog: Gutenberg vs Elementor.⭐️
GeneratePress or Astra?
GeneratePress and Astra, both contain some strengths and shortcomings that might empower or limit your website-building capabilities. It totally depends on what features you need from that WordPress theme. For example, if you want a powerful theme with good WooCommerce compatibility and feature support along with tempting starter templates then, Astra is a perfect pick. On the other hand, if your primary concern is website performance then, GeneratePress offers a little advantages in that case.
Hence, determine what you actually want from your WordPress theme and choose one that consummately aligns with your needs or preferences.
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