You can now use a page builder to create complete themes, complete with headers, footers, archive pages, and other components, thanks to plugins for page builders like Elementor. Now, all you need is a lightweight theme to serve as a framework for the content you create with your preferred page builder, as opposed to a massive theme as in previous years.
What is Astra Theme in Elementor?
As soon as you activate Astra, all of the key components on your website will have styling. As soon as you activate your website, it seems to be a “real” website, and Astra allows you to customise every aspect of it using the Customizer.
What is the Hello Theme in Elementor?
The Hello theme doesn’t style any of the essential WordPress components, thus when you first activate the theme, your website doesn’t appear to be a “real” website. Once more, that’s because designing every one of those elements is supposed to be done using Elementor.
What are the differences between Astra and Hello Theme in Elementor?
You may be debating between Astra and the Hello theme for your next WordPress/Elementor project because of their similar performance-focused design and extensive integration with the Elementor page builder. To help you comprehend the differences, let’s have a look at some of the main sites and content:
Design Comparison
Essentially, if you use the Hello theme, these design comparisons should emphasise that you need to utilise Elementor Pro to build significant theme elements. Furthermore, you cannot rely on your theme to perform any of the labour-intensive tasks; instead, you must use Elementor for everything. However, Astra has already styled these items for you; all you have to do is use the WordPress Customizer to modify them to suit your needs.
Header and Footer Design
The Hello theme lacks a proper header. A navigation menu can be paired with a logo or the site title. The page title will continue to appear along with the header. You will need to create your header using Elementor Pro or custom CSS if you want it to be more advanced than this. You’ll also need to design the footer in Elementor Pro because Hello does not provide one of its own.
However, the Astra theme comes with a fully functional header that you can further customise with the built-in WordPress Customizer. The header of the Free Astra theme is transparent. A custom last menu item can also be added as a button, widget, text/HTML, and many more forms. To add an appealing appearance and tidbits of information about the website, the logo, site title, and site tagline can be included and appropriately handled. With Astra, you can also use the WordPress Customizer to personalise your footer.
Archive Page for Blog
Your blog’s archive page is where all of your most recent blog entries are listed. Once more, you can see that Hello uses standard paragraph text for the content and an H2 for the blog title without adding any custom stylings of its own. Furthermore, the posts only have the title and content; there is no metadata.
Astra, however, offers post metadata for the following together with a fully formatted blog archive page:
- Date of Publication
- Category
- Author
You may use the WordPress Customizer in Astra to manage the metadata and look of your blog archive.
Comment Section in the Blog
A such tale can be found on the one-page blog page of Elementor Hello, which employs an H1 for the article title and normal paragraph text. It adds some basic design to the comments and comment form, but once more, you’ll have to work hard in Elementor Pro to make everything look nice. Observe that Hello does not include a featured image or any article metadata like the author, category, etc., much like the blog archive page. Conversely, Astra automatically adds this metadata and comes with a fully designed comments area.
Performance Comparison
You would think that the Hello theme would be more performance-optimized than Astra given its minimalist design. But keep in mind that Hello is not “finished” in the sense that it comes from the box. In other words, to have a functional website, you will still need to create your header, footer, and other content using Elementor Pro. A simple header and footer added with Elementor make the difference go back in Astra’s favour.
In summary, you have a performance-optimized base with both of these themes to build a site that loads quickly. Furthermore, a few KB variations won’t have a significant impact on real-world use. Since both Astra and the Hello theme are optimised and the difference isn’t significant, performance shouldn’t be a major consideration when selecting one over the other.
Built-in Features Comparison
You get no features with the Hello theme, so this is a straightforward comparison. Once more, that’s sort of its selling point—it’s nothing more than the bare minimum. The WordPress Customizer only displays the standard options that are included with every WordPress website; you won’t see any options from the Hello Them section. Once more, this is because Elementor is meant to handle everything.
However, Astra provides you with comprehensive WordPress Customizer settings for:
- Headers, including the ability to configure transparent headers, sticky headers, and other useful options
- Global: Button Header – Primary Header, Primary Menu, Transparent Header; Typography, Colours, Container Layout
- Archive/Blog and Individual Posts
These Customizer features can be useful even if you still want to create most or all of your web pages using Elementor. For instance, controlling your Elementor designs and making adjustments later is made simpler when you can set up global colours and typography directly from your theme.
Plugin Comparison
As demonstrated by the WooCommerce segment of the aforementioned design comparison, the Hello theme lacks plugin integrations. Rather, you’ll need to utilise Elementor, custom CSS, or the plugin’s settings to manage how those plugins appear and work. However, Astra has pre-installed integrations for well-known e-Learning LMS and e-commerce plugins, such as:
- WooCommerce
- Easy Digital Downloads
- LearnDash
- LifterLMS
Thus, Astra will look fantastic with those plugins straight out of the box.
Additionally, Astra’s interaction with those plugins can be customised with specific parameters found in the WordPress Customizer. For instance, Astra eliminates the requirement for you to build a distracted-free checkout process by just clicking a box.
Free Template Comparison
If you want to utilise the Elementor Hello theme, you will have to create your website from the ground up. Although there are many different page and block templates available in Elementor, you are unable to import a whole pre-made website.
However, Astra provides a sizable collection of free Elementor templates (also known as beginning templates) that you can import with a few mouse clicks. With Elementor, many of these beginning templates are constructed, along with all the configuration options required for Astra’s numerous WordPress Customizer settings.
Conclusion
Although Hello is a fantastic theme, not every website you create with Elementor will benefit from it being the finest theme. We looked at the free Elementor plugin, which works well for creating simple web pages. Hello might be a decent option if you have the time to design every aspect of your website using Elementor Pro and don’t mind utilising custom CSS to fill in the blanks.
Astra is a better choice, though, if you’re searching for a more comprehensive theme that doesn’t require you to create everything from scratch. It is designed to work with Elementor and is quite lightweight. So, if you want a simple design process without much knowledge about the technical aspects then Astra is the best choice for you.