WP Astra vs. GeneratePress – Which Is Better?

astra vs generatepress
astra vs generatepress

We’ve optimized 4000+ sites through our WordPress Site Speed Optimization Service, WPSpeedFix.com and get asked about theme speed all the time – specifically Astra vs Generatepress and which is better or faster, both of which are listed on our Fastest Wordpress Themes post.

There’s some detail comparisons on both below but long story short:

GeneratePress (generatepress.com) is the faster theme, by a tiny margin BUT has less features and flexibility. If you want the absolute fastest, choose GP.

WP Astra (wpastra.com) is a touch bigger and very slightly slower BUT has a lot more features, more and better looking prebuilt templates – if that’s important to you then chose WP Astra…this is especially true if you’re an agency or web designer who is building client sites and needs maximum flexibility.

As it stands, both WP Astra and Generatepress are great all-rounder themes that can provide your site with some pretty impressive loading speeds, as well as quite a few different customization options that can make your page layout as intuitive as possible.

Undeniably, both themes have their strengths and their weaknesses. We’ll do our best to outline all of those good and bad points for you, and by the end of the article, you’ll hopefully have come to a conclusion as to which side of the WP Astra vs. GeneratePress divide you fall on.

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Pricing Compared

In order to be fair when tackling this WP Astra vs. GeneratePress debate, we’re going to need to make an important distinction in the aspects of the themes that we’re going to be covering.

Simply put, Astra has three annual plans that it provides for its users, while GeneratePress is limited to only one. The initial Astra plan – the Astra Pro – will cost you an annual sum of $59, while the GeneratePress plan will set you back $49.95.

We felt we should make this distinction clear because if you have the available funds to afford the more high-end Astra plans, like the $169 mini agency bundle, or the $249 agency bundle, then you’ll predictably gain access to a lot more impressive tools that you can use.

However, the difference between paying $59 and $169 is quite steep, and while larger companies won’t have much trouble when it comes to covering that price, the smaller businesses will likely find the price difference a bit too jarring to consider upgrading to the mini agency bundle.

Therefore, in order to have as much of a fair comparison on the subject of WP Astra vs. GeneratePress as we can, we’ve limited the number of elements that are under consideration to the ones that come from the two plans that are the most similar in price to one another.

Similarities Between The Two Themes

Seeing as how both of these themes are acclaimed to be two of the best WordPress themes that you can use on your site, you can imagine that they would have a lot of elements in common when it comes to their general infrastructure and list of available options.

Renewal: Upon renewal of your yearly plans, GeneratePress will provide you with a 40% discount, while Astra will provide you with a smaller but still welcome 20% discount.

Size: Astra comes in at under 50KB, which is still staggeringly lightweight, but GeneratePress beats it out once again with it’s under 30KBs of disc space usage.

Speed: The aforementioned slight difference in size, as well as the general better compatibility with the plugins that it has at its disposal, gives GeneratePress the slight edge when it comes to loading and site speeds.

Modules: While GeneratePress has a good number of modules – 15 to be exact, Astra beats it out by one with its 16 modules. However, a slight note should be made that two of the modules are yet to be released, switching the lead over to GeneratePress, at least for the time being.

Templates: GeneratePress Premium comes with 33 pre-built page templates to choose from, while the Astra Pro plan only comes with slightly more than 20.

WooCommerce: Both themes have a lot of customization options available that can be used with the WooCommerce plugin.

Page builders: Both themes are compatible with most of the more popular page builders. However, while GeneratePress can be used in tandem with each builder equally, it has been noted that Astra runs well with other builders, but it’s better with Elementor and Beaver Builder.

Megamenu and filters: Both themes come with good navigation and secondary navigation options, as well as mega menus that can make the feature placements on your site a lot more intuitive.

Mobile-friendly: Both themes are flexible enough to be adaptable to any platform.

SEO-friendly: Both themes are compatible with the Schema algorithm, improving their Google rankings. The more costly plans for Astra are also compatible with Schema pro.

The code: Both templates are well optimized and have very little in the way of needless code that could create unnecessary strain on the CPU or problems with any of the plugins and features. This also means that as long as you have some level of skill, you can easily use the code editors in order to easily change quite a few things on both themes.

GeneratePress Features

The annual GeneratePress Premium plan comes with a full year of updates and support and a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re unsatisfied with the service that was provided. You’ll also gain access to the full site library and all of the available templates, fonts, colors, header, and footer options.

The theme also comes with a free version that anyone can use. If you’re interested in hearing a bit more about the differences between the premium and free versions of GeneratePress, then you might be interested in this article.

In short, while the premium version has the most customization options, the free version still has the same blistering speeds, low CPU usages, availability to be used on an unlimited number of sites, and a decent amount of pre-made demo sites.

WP Astra Features

The WP Astra template also comes with the option to be used on an unlimited number of sites, one-to-one support, a large number of different headers, colors and widget options, and even a spacing control feature that allows you to create a better design for your layout.

The agency bundles come with access to more than double the number of starter templates of the Pro plan, a selection of addons for both Beaver Builder and Elementor, which will make site modifications much easier, and even Pro versions of both the Convert and the Schema plugins.

It should also be pointed out that even without getting the more expensive plans, the Astra pro plan has more than enough available functions. Among these are a number of blog and custom layouts, a scroll to the top link, options to implement clearly defined header sections, LifterLMS Integration, hooks for easier coding sessions, and so on.

Conclusion

It should be clear by now that both Astra and GeneratePress have very different strengths and weaknesses. This contrast in their strong points comes due to them not being targeted towards the same types of users.

GeneratePress beats Astra in terms of speed and price, and it can more than match up to it in terms of customization options and third-party support features, as well as plugins. These qualities make GeneratePress an ideal option for smaller companies and private businesses that are looking for incredible site speeds and decent layout options at affordable prices.

WP Astra is definitely a more costly alternative. This isn’t just in regard to GeneratePress, but also to a lot of other similar themes currently available on the market as well. This definitely limits the availability of the better features it has to offer.

However, any company that’s willing to spend a few more dollars will find that the agency bundles can really give your site a significant boost in terms of available site visitor features, layout designs, plugin options, portfolios, and more.

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