Astra vs Virtue Theme comparison [2023] 💥
ASTRA THEME (Virtue 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.
VIRTUE THEME (Virtue vs Astra)
The Virtue Theme has both a free and a Pro version. The free version is very popular and as it should be, the Pro version is of course 5x better. I will discuss both versions. Virtue was designed by Kadence-WP. Kadence is their No.1 theme and here's my review for it.
You find here all themes that Kadence-WP has to offer. If you would switch to the pro version, it is best to take the "Bundle" with which you not only have the Virtue Theme but all these themes at your disposal in 1x. The pro version offers the next extras.
Virtue theme review: Rating
If we check on Wordpress.org Virtue's rating is 4.9 out of 5. There are almost no higher rated themes because out of 220 people who gave a rating, only 6 people gave it less than 5 stars. Virtue is installed on more than 40,000+ websites which instills even more confidence. Apparently a lot of people are satisfied with this theme.
Virtue theme review: Demos
Virtue has about 6 different demos that you can install with 1 click. If that's not enough for you, you'd better use the Astra Theme which has about 150 pieces. The nice thing about demos is that you can make a quick start with them. The website is ready but still with the wrong photos and texts in principle. So place your logo in it, adjust the texts and photos and you are well on your way to having your own site.
Virtue theme review: Webshops
Virtue is more than ready for building professional ecommerce websites with the popular Woocommerce plugin. Today, more than half of all shops are built online with Woocommerce. Virtue gives you great customizability for the theme and with many extra features such as different number of column layouts, radio buttons, and custom tabs.
Virtue theme review: Speed
The image above shows that the Virtue Theme produces insanely fast loading times with the help of a good cache plugin. Virtue is a minimalist theme and most of them are pretty fast so it doesn't surprise me. In order to be found well, it is very important these days to use a fast-loading theme and Virtue is therefore very suitable for that.
Virtue theme review: Pagebuilders
The Virtue theme comes standard with the Gutenberg page builder and its own PageBuilder. The theme is also fully prepared to work with the SiteOrigin page builder. This is a very good page builder that has been installed on more than a million websites. I definitely recommend that you use this free plugin.
Virtue Demo content Importer
Many themes whine about copyrighted images and if you install a demo of them in your website, it will not contain the same images that they show in the demo on their site. At Virtue, if desired, you will receive the original images as shown in the short video above.
Virtue theme: Blogs
Virtue is great for building your own blog. There are 4 different ready-made layouts and all types of blog posts can be beautifully displayed on the archive pages such as video posts, posts with sliders or images, etc.
Virtue theme: Image Grids
Do you want to show your projects to your visitors in a brilliant way? Virtue also offers great portfolio options with image grids or different styles of mosaic layouts that can be arranged in the number of columns you want.
Virtue: Header layout
Virtue, like most premium themes, offers quite a few different header styles. Logo left or center, multiple menus and more. Just choose the style that best suits your website and you're done. It doesn't have a real header builder so the options are limited and freestyling isn't included unless you're good with CSS.
Virtue Options Panel
Virtue has all the important settings for you in an options panel. This panel is very clear, settings are easy to find as they are divided into chapters. A search function in the settings like the Divi Theme unfortunately doesn't have that yet, but that is only necessary with a very large number of settings, something Virtue does not have.
Virtue theme review: Extra features
Much more is possible with Virtue and the image above shows a number of features that have not yet been discussed here. If your interest is aroused in the Virtue Theme, you can investigate further on their own site whether you like the theme.
Virtue theme review: Conclusion
All themes built by Kadence-WP are of very good quality, and that also applies to Virtue. One can build anything with it, such as blogs, portfolios, but I think the theme is best suited for company websites. The theme offers beautiful demos, many customization options and everything works smoothly. The pro version is great although there are of course better themes.
Virtue vs Astra conclusion
First of all, thank you for reading this Virtue vs Astra comparison to the end. These themes are both great and you can use them for anything. Strong points of Astra are the incredibly fast loading times and the smoothness with which everything functions, the beautiful designs (also for shops) and the price. Virtue is, as said, a very good theme, but is equally inferior to Astra in everything. Astra is simply one of the better themes out there.