Astra
by Brainstorm Force
The most popular theme for WordPress. Fast, lightweight, and highly customizable.
The King of WordPress Themes?
With over 2 million active installs, Astra is the most popular non-default WordPress theme in history. But popularity does not always equal quality. In Astra's case, however, it does.
We have used Astra on dozens of client sites ranging from simple blogs to complex WooCommerce stores. It strikes the perfect balance between performance and customization.
Performance Note
Astra is built for speed. A default Astra installation loads in less than 0.5 seconds and requires less than 50KB of resources.
Key Features
- Starter Templates: Astra's "killer feature." You can import complete website designs for Elementor, Beaver Builder, or the Block Editor with one click.
- Header & Footer Builder: A drag-and-drop visual builder to create custom headers without code.
- Page Builder Integration: Unlike many themes that fight against page builders, Astra disables its own styling when it detects Elementor or Beaver Builder, giving you a blank canvas.
- WooCommerce Ready: It includes specific features for online stores, like infinite scroll, grid view, and off-canvas sidebars.
Performance Comparison
We tested Astra against other popular "lightweight" themes on a fresh WordPress install.
| Metric | Astra | OceanWP | Hello Elementor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page Size | 48KB | 180KB | 26KB |
| HTTP Requests | 7 | 19 | 6 |
| Load Time | 0.4s | 0.7s | 0.35s |
While Hello Elementor is slightly lighter, it has zero styling. Astra provides a full design system while staying nearly as fast.
Customization
Astra uses the native WordPress Customizer. This is great because you can see changes in real-time.
- Global Colors: Set a color palette that applies everywhere.
- Typography: extensive Google Fonts integration.
- Layout Control: Define container widths, sidebar layouts, and content padding globally or per-page.
Pricing
Astra is a "Freemium" theme.
- Astra Free: Enough for 90% of websites. Includes basic header builder and standard layouts.
- Astra Pro ($59/yr): Adds "Sticky Header," "Mega Menu," advanced blog layouts, and more color controls.
- Essential Bundle: Includes premium starter templates and the WP Portfolio plugin.
Final Verdict
For most users, Astra is the safest and best choice. It is updated constantly, supported by a huge company (Brainstorm Force), and is fast enough to pass Core Web Vitals out of the box.
Our Review
Astra defines the modern WordPress theme: it is incredibly lightweight (less than 50KB), works perfectly with Elementor and Beaver Builder, and offers the largest library of professional starter templates in the market.
Pros
- Extremely lightweight (under 50KB frontend)
- Massive library of 280+ importable Starter Templates
- Native support for Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Gutenberg
- Header and Footer builder included in the free version
- No jQuery dependencies (better performance)
Cons
- The sheer number of options in the Customizer can be overwhelming
- Some essential blog styling features are locked behind the Pro version
- Support for the free version can be slower than Pro