Astra vs GeneratePress 2023: Which Theme is Best for SEO?

There is no doubt that Astra and GeneratePress are two of the most popular WordPress premium themes available out there. Both of these themes can be used for a wide range of purposes, and they are loaded with features. But what if you have to settle down with just one theme only? It is undoubtedly a tough decision.

That’s why, to make it extremely easy for you, I welcome you to the Astra vs. GeneratePress breakdown guide. In this article, I am going to draw a difference between both of these top premium WordPress themes and help you to pick the right theme at the end.

Astra vs GeneratePress

Sounds cool? So here we go;

Astra – Quick Overview

Astra is one of the most beautiful yet multipurpose WordPress themes available out there. The theme can be used for blogs, portfolios, online websites, businesses, and more. Plus, you can download and install the theme on your WordPress website free of cost.

The theme also supports a wide range of page builder WordPress plugins. As a result, you are getting the ultimate experience when it comes to designing your website.

Even it packs lots of free yet high-quality pre-made website designs available for you. Simply install the theme and start customizing your website right away. This surely kills the need of having knowledge of designing or coding.

But in case if you want to extend the functionalities, then you can try out the Astra Pro. By switching to the pro version, you will get features like hooks/filter, blog layouts, mega menu, header section, transparent header, and more.

Key features of Astra WordPress Theme

However, to simplify the Astra theme for you, let me just talk about the key features of the theme.

Ultimate Speed:

Speed is definitely one of the important features for any theme out there. If your website is not loading fast enough, be ready to say bye-bye to the ranking.

However, the cool part is that the Astra theme is built by keeping speed in mind. The theme is designed to be lightweight and sleek. So it does not really affect the page loading time.

Starter Themes:

Starter themes really come in handy for first-time website developers. Astra comes with a bunch of ready-to-use starter themes.

All you have to do is install any of the starter theme based on your website and start editing it with your favorite page builder tool. Also, it supports page builder tools like Elementor, Beaver, Thrive Architect, and many more.

As you are getting the chance to work with pre-made templates, so there is no need for you to have any prior knowledge of CSS, coding, or design.

However, if you are using the free version of the theme, then you must consider getting some CSS skills. As you are not getting many customizing features with the Astra free version.

Mobile-friendly options:

We cannot deny the fact that our websites receive the highest traffic from mobile devices. Hence, to help you to customize your website for mobile devices, the Astra Pro theme comes with a module called Mobile Header.

Once activated, you will get features like menu breakpoint, menu label, toggle button style, toggle button color, and many more. Along with that, you can set a different logo for your mobile website.

SEO-Friendly:

Having an SEO Friendly theme is extremely important. But not all the themes come with SEO friendly features. However, the Astra Pro theme takes care of the SEO part very well.

Apart from being extremely fast, the website follows the modern SEO standards. As a result, it adds schema markup to each and every page of your website by default. So you will have a better chance of appearing in Google’s snippet and knowledge graph.

Easy Customization Options:

Astra theme performs really well when it comes to customization. By going through its extensive layout settings, you will be able to manage the layout of your website’s header, blog, page, individual post, sidebar, and footer exclusively.

You can further edit the colors, background, and typography. In short, the theme allows you to customize each and every element of your website. Plus, you don’t need any coding knowledge to make the changes.

Get Astra Pro

How Much Does Astra Pro Cost?

Astra Pro is available as an annual and lifetime plan, and the pricing is divided into three categories. These categories are the Astra Pro, Mini Agency Bundle, and Agency Bundle.

These plans cost you $47, $169, and $249, respectively, if you choose the annual plan. For the lifetime bundle, these plans will cost you $249, $499 and $699, respectively.

While all of these packages have the same features, with the Mini Agency Bundle and Agency Bundle, you will be getting 55+ Agency starter templates and a few extra plugins.

But no matter what plan you choose, you will get access to one-to-one support, unlimited website usages, extensive training, and many more.

Get Astra Premium Addon

GeneratePress – Quick Overview

GeneratePress is also known to be one of the top WordPress themes, and I am using it on this website. It is filled with features and can be used on different websites, blogs, and business websites. You can use the theme to create an online store, blog, portfolio, or a business website.

The theme also offers you lots of customization options, allowing you to customize elements like backgrounds, blog, colors, copyright. Plus, you can disable or enable individual elements, deploy the mega menu, secondary nav sections, typography, and more.

Moreover, just like Astra, it also comes with a site library. So you can easily import the whole library to your website and make your site live instantly. The best part is that it also offers you pre-made templates build for page builders like Elementor and Beaver (The theme is also compatible with elementor addons, and if you want, you can get elementor pro discount code from here).

You can download GeneratePress free of cost from WordPress.org. However, the free version does not offer you as many functionalities or customization options as Astra free does.

Key Features Of GeneratePress Premium Theme

Lightweight:

The good part of the theme is that it is coded well, and it does not have any buggy code in it. Also, the theme size is minimal. As a result, it makes your website loads pretty fast.

Along with that, the theme is also developer-friendly. It comes with inbuilt options for you to add hooks and filters without altering the theme files. Also, you have the option to reset the theme in case if you mess things up.

A wide range of customization options:

As mentioned earlier, the GeneratePress theme is filled with customization options. You can start by customizing your website by using the default WordPress customizer. Or you can use any other page builder for the same.

However, while the free version of the GeneratePress theme gives you decent options, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, the customization options are really vast.

The theme allows you to customize areas like header, navigation, sidebar layout, blog post layout, footer layout, and so on.

Pre-Made Starter Sites:

GeneratePress also comes with quite a lot of pre-made starter sites. Pre-made starter sites are a good option when you have no prior knowledge of website building. Also, it really speeds up the whole designing process.

GeneratePress back in 2018, launched its Site Library feature, and it comes with 25+ pre-built demo sites. These pre-build demo sites can be used for your blog, agency website, online store, and others.

However, the only drawback is that the GeneratePress free version does not include any demo sites like Astra free.

Page-Level Settings:

One of the best parts of the Generatepress theme is that it offers you page level settings. As a result, you will get better control over each piece of your content.

GeneratePress does it by giving a new layout meta box feature for every single post and page. As a result, you can easily change how many sidebars your site uses or the sidebar orientation.

You can also choose how many footer widgets to use or disable certain elements like the header, navigation menu, post featured image, post title, or footer. Plus, it allows you to create a particular container for your page builder.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times:

GeneratePress is also a highly optimized theme for performance and fast loading speed as it uses a clean code structure. Hence, the entire theme has a size of less than 30 KB only.

If I go ahead and compare this page size with other themes, then most of the themes have a size of around 200 KB. Also, the poorly coded themes can be sized up to 1 MB.

Plus, the theme does not have any code dependencies. This helps in avoiding the render-blocking error that Google Page speed Insights often mentions.

So if you are really serious about the page speed, then GeneratePress is an ideal choice for you.

Get GeneratePress Pro

How Much does GeneratePress Premium Cost?

Unlike Astra, GeneratePress does not have a bunch of plans. Instead, it comes with a single plan which costs you $49.95.

However, GeneratePress often run different promotions and discount offers. So you might get the theme at a price of $42-$43.

Also, it comes with all the premium modules and offers you full access to the site-library. The theme can be used on unlimited websites, and it provides one year of updates & support.

Get GeneratePress Pro Addon

Astra vs GeneratePress – Which WordPress Theme is the Best?

Ease of use:

Both themes are extremely easy to use and quick to get started with. To get started with these themes, all you have to do is install them and head over to the Appearance section of your WordPress website, and you will instantly be able to customize your site.

This is extremely helpful if you are not using any premium page builders like Elementor. Also, the best part I like about both of these themes is that they have a modular approach.

As a result, all the related settings are grouped together. This makes it extremely easy to customize each and every element on the website. Like you can edit the settings, enable or disable different elements, and so on.

Performance Astra Vs GeneratePress:

Astra and GeneratePress, both of the themes, perform extremely well. Both of them are incredibly lightweight and have a faster loading speed.

Even if you test both of the templates using tools like Pingdom, you will get similar features. However, Generatepress is a bit slower compared to Astra when used with a page builder like Elementor. But the difference is not really huge to make any kind of difference.

However, you should also know that your website’s performance depends on various factors. It includes which web hosting you are using, which plugins are installed on your website, and many more.

Customization:

When it comes to customization again, both of the themes have quite similar features. However, to make it extremely easy for you, let me just point out the difference that both of these themes has:

GenratePress

• With the GeneratePress theme, the mobile header option will help you to customize the alignment of elements, paddings, and other settings.
• You can set different page headers for individual pages.
• You can make your page header transparent, add video or image in the background, and so on.
• It also offers you an option to manage your post or page headers.
• You can also customize your footer, footer layout, set custom text, and so on.

Astra

• With Astra, you will be able to choose between saver available footer widget layouts and set custom text.
• Astra offers you different widget areas depending on the website template you choose.
• Astra is extremely flexible when it comes to changing color and typography of every element on your website.

Pre-Built Site Templates

Both of the themes come with pre-built site templates. However, Astra has a bigger site library compared to GeneratePress.

Also, installing pre-made templates on Astra is super easy.

You just have to install a free plugin, and it will import the template instantly. But the templates were designed for Astra pro themes. So if you are planning to use the free version of the theme, it may not work properly.

On the other hand, GeneratePress also comes with an awesome site library. However, the library isn’t as huge as Astra. But yes, it does have quality themes. Moreover, GeneratePress also offers you themes for different page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Gutenberg, and Brizy.

Developer Friendly:

Astra and GeneratePress, both of them, are extremely developer-friendly. These themes are designed by keeping non-coders in mind, and yes, you don’t need to touch the code to create an awesome website.

Although, if you are good at CSS, then both of the themes offer you a CSS section where you can add CSS and customize it to your website. Also, there is an option to add hooks for extensive customization.

Moreover, you are also getting an import and export option under the theme settings. So you can easily import and export your designed theme to your client website or on your other sites.

Even if you are planning to create a child theme, then both of the themes support so. So it does not really matter if you are an experienced developer or a newbie, both of the templates are good enough to work with.

WooCommerce Integration

In case if you are planning to set up an online store, then both of the themes are an ideal choice. They both come with WooCommerce integration support and offers you an online store template.

However, if I draw a comparison, then Astra is quite more flexible and highly customizable than GeneratePress. Also, Astra offers you more eCommerce templates than Generatepress.

But at the end of the day, GeneratePress also performs extremely well with WooCommerce and other eCommerce plugins.

Support & Documentation

Finally, let’s talk about support and documentation. Both of the themes offer you high priority support, and you can raise a ticket to get your query solved.

However, Generatepress has an extensive knowledge base that will help you to customize your website right away. It includes detailed documentation about all the customization options.

Similarly, Astra also has its knowledge base and offers detailed documentation. So it won’t be a problem for you to get started with any of the themes at all.

Suggestion: Kadence WP is another most popular clean and professional looking theme which you can try instead of Generatepress or Astra. It helps creators build beautiful, effective websites for any type of business.

Conclusion

So that was all for the Astra Vs GeneratePress. Both themes have their own pros and cons. However, I find Generatepress to be more stable, thanks to the regular updates. Also, it has more customization options and allows you to customize each and every part of your website.

While on the other hand, Astra comes with a huge number of pre-made templates and offers you lots of customization options as well.

So I would suggest you check both of the theme’s features and then be the judge of what theme you really want to purchase.

But my suggestion would be GeneratePress.

Anyway, if you have any more questions to thoughts to share, then do comment below.