Astra
Lightweight multipurpose theme that ships fast and plays nicely with every major builder.
- Lighthouse
- 92 / 100 Tested May 28, 2026
- Accessibility
- WCAG AA
- Last release
- May 26, 2026 v4.6.10
- WP.org rating
- 4.9
Astra is the most-installed premium WordPress theme, by a wide margin. It loads fast in clean tests, works with every major page builder, and the free version is genuinely useful on its own. The Pro tier adds header and footer builder controls, blog layouts, and sticky-header behavior. If you don't know which theme to pick, this is the safe default the WordPress community keeps converging on.
Pros
- Sub-100ms render in clean WordPress installs
- Works with Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, Bricks, and Gutenberg
- Free tier covers most use cases on its own
- Brainstorm Force ships updates on a steady weekly cadence
Cons
- Header and footer builder locked behind the Pro paywall
- Default styling is intentionally vanilla, customization work falls to you
Pick Astra when you want a fast, well-maintained base that pairs with any builder later. The safe default for most multipurpose WordPress projects where you do not have a strong opinion on design system out of the box.
Avoid Astra if you want a strongly opinionated design system shipped to you. The base theme is neutral on purpose, so you will be doing the styling work yourself or pairing it with a builder.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Astra free to use?
- Yes. Astra's free version is genuinely useful and covers most non-commercial WordPress sites. Astra Pro starts at $47 per year and unlocks the header and footer builder, blog layouts, sticky header behavior, and access to the starter sites library.
- Does Astra work with page builders like Elementor or Divi?
- Yes. Astra is builder-agnostic and integrates cleanly with Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, Bricks, and the native Gutenberg block editor. Many agencies pair Astra with Elementor Pro as a default stack.
- How does Astra compare to GeneratePress for performance?
- GeneratePress is marginally faster on Lighthouse in clean benchmarks (sub-30KB core vs Astra's slightly larger footprint), but Astra is feature-richer out of the box. For pure speed, pick GeneratePress; for broader feature coverage at near-equal performance, pick Astra.
- Who owns and maintains Astra?
- Astra is owned by Brainstorm Force, an India-based WordPress products company founded in 2016. Brainstorm Force ships updates on a steady weekly cadence and also publishes Spectra (block library) and Cartflows (funnel builder).
Recent releases
- v4.6.10 May 26, 2026
WooCommerce 9.0 compatibility fixes, three security patches
- v4.6.9 May 5, 2026
Header builder bug fix, Hindi translation update
- v4.6.8 April 18, 2026
Block-theme compatibility improvements
- v4.6.7 April 2, 2026
Performance tweaks for archive pages
- v4.6.6 March 14, 2026
Mega menu accessibility fix
- v4.6.5 February 22, 2026
Sticky header layout fix on iOS Safari
- v4.6.4 February 3, 2026
Customizer performance optimization
- v4.6.3 January 17, 2026
Schema markup additions
| Product | Type | Price | Lighthouse |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Classic | Free, Pro from $47 | 92 |
| | Classic | Free, Pro from $59 | 98 |
 Kadence | Hybrid | Free, Pro from $89 | 95 |
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Performance testing
Tested on Kinsta Starter (Google Cloud C3D, Iowa). Configuration: mobile, 4G simulated, cold cache. 5 runs, median reported. Raw Lighthouse JSON downloadable on request.
Data freshness
Last release tracked May 26, 2026. Release history maintained from the vendor's changelog. Vendor activity refreshed on every build.