Astra vs TheGem Theme comparison [2023] 💥
ASTRA THEME (The-Gem vs Astra)
WP-Astra is the fastest Wordpress theme ever made...
In this Astra Theme review for [2023], I'll be the first to tell you that 2.369.964+ people entrust the health of their website to Astra. The Astra Theme was specially built from scratch to be able to build the most beautiful shops and more importantly, it had to load very fast. The Astra team has started a highly successful theme with this which is becoming increasingly popular. The only theme that stands up to speed against Astra is Generatepress but imposes it all other fronts against Astra.
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The faster your website, the higher it ranks in Google, the longer visitors stay on your site and there are many more benefits associated with it. Speed is very valuable today. With Astra you are in professional hands in that regard. Web shops also have to be fast, which results in more turnover. Let's start with that because Astra is built to build beautiful super fast charging shops with it.
ASTRA FREE & PRO: RATING
If we check on Wordpress.org Astra's rating, we see that practically all raters gave 5 stars on a couple of haters after that. The image above also shows that the free theme alone has already been installed on more than 1 million websites. Together with the pro version, that goes above 1.6 million.
ASTRA WEBSHOPS
Astra is optimized to achieve more conversion for your shop and generate more sales. A shop made with Astra is just much faster than with any other theme. Here on the Astra website you can see how this was tested against 50 other top themes by SEO- experts.
On the above-mentioned page you will also find all information about Astra + Woocommerce. A fast-loading webshop is not only appreciated by your visitors, but also by Google. This brings your shop higher in the SERP of Google and this attracts extra visitors. Your visitor numbers and their appreciation therefore increase exponentially.
Astra offers great possibilities to style your shop exactly the way you want without any technical knowledge being required. A few years ago this was unthinkable. Ok you can install all existing Woocommerce plugins without worrying about compatibility issues.
Furthermore, Astra offers a range of modern options for shops that will make your webshop a real success, such as: Infinite Scroll, Adaptable grid settings, Off-canvas sidebar, Quickview, Dropdown cart and more. More on this here. Check out some of the many complete shopping demo sites below that you can install in your site with 1 click.
ASTRA: STARTER DEMOS
As for starter demos (templates), Astra offers a total of 180 complete websites. So these are not individual pages or sections, but complete websites that you can take over and start adding your house style to them. These demos were prepared by the Astra programmers for the 4 different page builders you see in the screenshot below. Few themes offer better demo options than this.
I would also like to say that the theme is not only responsive, but special attention has been paid to create a perfect design and ease of use for mobile webshops. This in view of the increasing sales via mobile devices which will probably exceed 50% next year.
It is also worth noting that you can adjust the complete check-out page, shopping cart and product pages to your wishes, HTML or other technical knowledge is not required. A poorly constructed checkout page can quickly cost you a percentage of your sales. You see, when it comes to E-commerce, the Astra team has thought of everything.
ASTRA: LOADING TIME
As can be seen below, the Astra theme has incredibly fast loading times. Wherever you test, at Google, GtMetrix, Y-Slow or Pingdom, it always scores phenomenally. These are known speed tests and as I said before, the only theme that can match such results is Generatepress.
ASTRA: PAGEBUILDERS
Astra works as a whole with the Elementor page builder...
You can operate Astra through its own panel and the Wordpress customizer, but the theme is prepared to use an elite pagebuilder. My first choice, Elementor, has a free and a pro version. It's great to work with Astra Pro + Elementor Pro as the 2 go hand-in-hand as if they were made for each other. But it doesn't necessarily have to cost you money since Astra and Elementor also have a free version, although unfortunately with a lot less options.
Elementor in Astra
ASTRA SCHEMA MARK-UP
Schema are short snippets of information that the search engines would like us to add to our pages so that they have a better idea of what exactly is on that page. Doing so will be rewarded with a better display of your website in search results. Astra automatically adds Schema markup to your pages for you as they indicate here.
ASTRA + LEARNDASH
It is easy to design and create a website that offers an online course using the Astra + LearnDash integration. Astra offers many design options and features that help you provide a better learning experience. LearnDash lets you create a distraction-free, conversion-focused website for your next online class. Combine it with Astra to discover the many customizations that can be made.
ASTRA + LIFTER-LMS
You can provide students with the best online learning experience by integrating Astra + LifterLMS. Astra gives you full control over the design of your website. You can make it look great and customize it as much as you want. You can create a website that focuses on learning and driving more conversions with features such as distraction-free learning, a conversion-focused checkout page, and many others.
ASTRA HEADERS, FOOTERS, 404
Astra Transparent Headers, Astra Custom Header and Astra Custom Footers are PRO features that allow you to style your complete header and footer however you want without technical knowledge. The same goes for your 404 pages, by the way. You can offer different headers to different user groups in your system.
ASTRA: MORE FEATURES
Astra has so much more to offer, here you will find a wonderful overview with all the features that are available. sit in Astra. Sit down for it because it's a huge laundry list.
ASTRA THEME REVIEW: CONCLUSION
Thank you for reading my Astra Theme review to the end. You will agree with me that Astra is a very special theme that stands head and shoulders above most other themes. I am only talking about the PRO version of course because the free version of no theme can compete with the top themes today of course. I personally work with Astra in combination with Elementor and as a professional designer it is one of my favorite themes along with the Divi Theme which can also be used anytime and anywhere . Astra has no weaknesses.
ASTRA THEME REVIEW: DE PRICING
Astra costs only 59 dollars for a year, you can build as many sites with it as you want, that is not money compared to other themes that are less good and require a separate license for each website on which you want to use it. If you have a little more to spend, supercharge your Astra with one of the many Bundle packages that usually come with big discounts. That is the best option for companies who want to have their business website at the highest level. Regardless of which package you purchase, at Astra the number of websites on which you can use the theme and extras is always unlimited. All in all, Astra is highly recommended and has very interesting deals if you purchase a lifetime package with huge discounts.
THE-GEM THEME (TheGem vs Astra)
The Gem Wordpress Theme it is definitely worth taking a closer look at the theme and writing a review about it. The first thing you notice are the beautiful demos that the theme offers, these are separate and well styled. In total, the theme currently has a sloppy 70-in-1-click demo versions available (they call them creative concepts themselves). There are themes like Be Theme with 600+ demos but they are fairly easy to assemble, The Gem offers a much higher quality. The Be Theme has more sales and is even number 3 on the Themeforest market place. Apparently there are many people who choose the many demos while they can only install one. Anyway, let's talk about The Gem and have a look at some of their demos below.
With a good multifunctional theme, you literally have to be able to create any type of website in order to achieve maximum scores in our reviews. And after playing with TheGem, I can absolutely say it delivers what it promises. TheGem is the latest creation from CodexThemes, well-known in the theme world. I have to say this theme is really versatile. CodexThemes put together some demos for niches ranging from creative agencies to gyms, to restaurants and more. It is definitely a beautiful and functional theme.
TheGem main functions
- More than 70 homemade design concepts for different niches
- Templates for more than 400 pages
- Focus on performance
- Useful custom message types
- Beautiful designs
- Includes Bakery Pagebuilder and Revolution Slider
- Correct code formatting for page speed
- Multi-page and one-page ready
- 2,600+ font icons
If you fancy any of the more than 70 homepage designs, you can easily import all or a certain selection through TheGem's control-board. All you need to do is go to TheGem Import in your admin panel and the wizard will walk you through everything. As for the import process, it couldn't be easier.
Install of TheGem WordPress Theme
After installing TheGem, you must first install all required and recommended plugins. Once you've done that, your admin panel will look much fuller. In addition to all the new plugins, TheGem also gives you many custom post types.
As I mentioned above in this review, you can always import one or more of the 70+ pre-designed design concepts by going to TheGem Import. But if you don't want to use any of those design concepts, you have to go to the theme's customization menu.
Customize TheGem WordPress Theme
TheGem uses its own theme customization manager, not the WordPress Customizer. I understand why themes do this, but I always find it a bit frustrating that I have to keep previewing changes instead of seeing them in real time. I wish there was an easy way to move all relevant options directly to the WordPress Customizer. The admin panel is divided into ten categories.
In general, you set up basic information such as the layout and identity of your blog. There is not much to change outside of your logo and some information about the functionality:
TheGem review headers
Under "Header" you can set every detail of your site's header. This includes layout, alignment and design:
You have a large number of header options thanks to the dropouts with multiple styles. In "Fonts" you can set which fonts your site uses and how big it is. You can go through any class to customize every aspect of your fonts. TheGem has many Google Fonts, so you have plenty of stylish options. And if you want more selection, you can always import new fonts via the included Fonts Manager:
In the "Colors" section, you can set colors for literally every single element on your site. It would take a while to go through and adjust everything, but all options are there if you want them:
TheGem review backgrounds
Just as the name says, "Backgrounds" lets you customize the backgrounds for different parts of your site. You can choose solid colors or upload images.
Under "Footer" you can turn your footer on and off and set custom text. Again, not much about this section. I feel like there may be other valuable options here - like activating / deactivating social icons or links:
TheGem review contact & social
With "Contacts & Socials" you can add address and contact information, as well as links to social icons. These social icons can be displayed in both the header and footer. I have a feeling that this section could be placed in the Header and Footer categories, but a sneak peek of that.
TheGem review back-ups
In this TheGem review it should be mentioned that "Backup" is a wonderful tool to have in it. This allows you to export a backup of all your theme settings. That way, if you ever lose any theme settings, you can easily restore them with the backup feature. Essentially, experimenting with theme settings makes a low-risk action, since you can always fall back on the backup if you need to:
TheGem Custom Post Types
TheGem includes seven custom post types by default. These are:
- News
- Portfolios
- Quickfinders
- Customers
- Galleries
- Teams
- Reviews
Custom fields for posts and pages
TheGem contains a huge amount of custom fields for creating posts or pages. When you add a new post or page, you'll see plenty of options at the bottom of the screen:
You can set everything from video footage to custom clips to custom layouts. For example, if you want to move the sidebar for one post, you can do that with custom fields. If you want to add custom widgets to one post, you can do that too. These custom fields have a lot of versatility. You have plenty of new ways to customize your individual posts and pages with TheGem.
Included is the Bakery Pagebuilder
As I mentioned in the list of features, you also get access to the Bakery Pagebuilder for creating pages. Bakery Pagebuilder is not my absolute favorite page builder, but it is definitely a solid option and includes both front-end and back-end editing. Whenever you create a new page or post, you have the option to enter your chosen Bakery Pagebuilder editor view to create drag and drop designs:
TheGem review Elementor
The Thegem Theme now comes in 2 different versions for a price. That means that you can choose between the Pagebuilder who is used, WP Bakery PageBuilder or Elementor.
TheGem loading time - Good Google PageSpeed
I did my tests on TheGem's demo-site using Google PageSpeed Insights. The score was 84 on desktop without any caching or optimized images. I guess after have fixed those issues the theme would score about 90 on PageSpeed Insights, a very good score.
TheGem vs Astra conclusion
First of all, thank you for reading this The-Gem vs Astra comparison to the end. Of course, these are both great themes, but it is immediately noticeable that Astra offers better quality. The theme is lightning fast, the fastest you can find and everything works flawlessly in Astra. Both themes have beautiful designs, but a shop with Astra offers much more functionalities. Finally, but very important, if you have several websites, that will cost you an extra license for each site with TheGem where Astra can be used on all your sites. A great alternative is the Divi Theme.