Hello Elementor vs Astra: Which is Better to Start a Site in 2026?
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Are you wondering what’s the best pick for your Elementor website – the minimalist Hello Elementor theme or something more flexible, such as Astra? Choosing any of these themes can define not only how your new website will look but also its customization potential and functionality, and today, we are glad to help you make a choice! In today’s brief comparison of Hello Elementor vs Astra, we’ll examine both themes and identify their key strengths and differences. Let’s get started!
What is Hello Elementor?
To better understand each theme’s benefits and differences, let’s learn more about each of them first.
Hello Elementor is a lightweight and responsive theme tailored to one of the most popular WordPress page builders. Created by the team behind Elementor, the theme is designed as a blank canvas, which is a great option if you want to create something original without having to develop anything from scratch. With immense customization potential and features aimed at making the theme your own, this solution is one of the best options Elementor can provide. Moreover, it is built to be fast and reliable, meaning you won’t need to spend extra time optimizing your website and its content from the start.
Key features:
- Minimalist & responsive design;
- Built for Elementor;
- SEO-friendly & RTL-ready;
- Compatible with over 100+ widgets;
- Impressive performance.
| Name | Developer | Price | Installations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hello Elementor | Elementor | Free | 1m+ |
What is Astra?
Being one of the most popular multipurpose WordPress theme options, Astra delivers a variety of solutions united by multiple responsive starter templates, flexible layouts, and ease of use. As an affordable solution for both newbies and professionals in WordPress, the provided theme is equipped with everything you may need to craft a memorable website for your individual projects or business. When comparing Hello Elementor vs Astra, it is safe to say that the latter is compatible with the #1 page builder, but it also works with other similar solutions, from Gutenberg to Spectra Builder. If you are looking for something that doesn’t go with just one layout but offers great performance and is user-friendly, you may find Astra the right pick for you, especially if you are willing to pay extra for one of its premium plans shown below.
| Astra Free | Astra Pro | Essential Toolkit | Business Toolkit |
|---|---|---|---|
|
| Everything included with Astra Pro, plus:
| Everything included with Essential Toolkit, plus: |
| Free | $69/year | $119/year | $159/year |
Key features:
- Over 300 pre-built websites;
- Works with 4 page builders;
- Reliable and optimized for speed;
- Recurring task automation via OttoKit;
- Small theme size.
| Name | Developer | Price | Installations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Astra | Brainstorm Force | Free or from $69/year | 1m+ |
Top 5 Benefits of Hello Elementor vs Astra
While both themes are quite multipurpose and configurable and may seem similar, they also have their differences. From design approach to a variety of offered features and customization possibilities, there’s a lot you can explore with each of them. Below, we have prepared a more detailed look at each of the 5 core aspects and a comparison between Hello Elementor vs Astra regarding these crucial points:
- Design;
- Compatibility with website builders;
- Customization;
- Layouts and starter templates;
- Performance.
Let’s look closer at each of these options to find more common features and differences between these two leading themes you may want to use for building your website.
| Features | Hello Elementor | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Single configurable layout | Yes | Only in the Free version |
| Multiple starter templates | Yes | Yes |
| Compatible with Elementor | Yes | Yes |
| Recurring task automation | No | Yes (Business Toolkit plan required) |
| AI-powered website building | Only with Elementor Pro | Yes |
| Minimalist design | Yes | Yes, with minimalist starter templates |
| Header & footer customization | Yes | Yes |
| Works with eCommerce websites | Yes (requires customization) | Yes |
| Low theme size | Yes (6 KB) | Yes (less than 50 KB) |
| Third-party integrations | No | Yes |
1. Design
Design is one of the main selling points for any theme. As for the Hello Elementor WordPress theme, it is built to offer you a clean canvas for creating your website. Its minimalistic approach to design allows your creative genius to transform the theme’s sections and elements in order to fit your expectations and needs. By using the Elementor builder’s integrated tools and widgets that the theme is compatible with, you will supercharge the potential of the Hello Elementor theme.
Astra, on the contrary, provides a wide choice of design options, being truly multipurpose rather than just minimalist. This is especially visible if you compare Hello Elementor vs Astra. With over 300 provided starter sites, this theme can easily meet the needs of any business or individual. Ranging from simple one-page sites to multipage designs, the variety of looks provided for the Astra WordPress theme helps you choose what fits your WordPress site best.
| Features | Hello Elementor | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Responsiveness | Yes | Yes |
| Styling options | Basic | Advanced |
| Global settings | Yes | Yes |
| Easy to customize | Yes | Yes |
| Varied headers and footers | No | Yes |
| eCommerce-ready design | No | Yes |
| Mega menu | No | Yes |
2. Website Builder Compatibility
The next important option both of these solutions provide is connected with website builder compatibility. Hello Elementor, for example, was developed specifically to fit the Elementor builder but also offer a great start for any user looking for a free multipurpose WordPress theme. Due to being fully optimized for this builder, the theme works great with default Elementor & Elementor Pro widgets. However, you can easily superscharge your builder and the theme with add-ons like Stratum to increase the range of available UI elements and website sections. Additionally, when you pick a theme optimized for a certain page builder like Elementor or Gutenberg, you get to:
- Customize layouts using drag-and-drop features;
- Import new and edit existing layouts;
- Add extra widgets for better design and functionality;
- Optimize performance without installing new plugins;
- Maintain flexibility to switch builders later if needed.
The developers of the Astra theme decided to go even further and give this theme compatibility with the majority of available builders, such as Gutenberg and Beaver Builder, not just Elementor. Most of the themes work with the latter due to it being used on almost every third website powered by WordPress. Additionally, each starter site and feature provided by Astra is available in the default website builder. This alone makes Astra a perfect choice for any WordPress user. The selection of its free sites makes the theme highly accessible, allowing anyone to build a responsive website in no time.
| Compatible builders | Hello Elementor | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Elementor | Yes | Yes |
| Gutenberg | No | Yes |
| Spectra | No | Yes |
| Beaver Builder | No | Yes |
3. Customization
Another crucial point of comparing Hello Elementor vs Astra is their customization. The theme developed by Elementor may offer a minimalist look, but its potential for crafting something unique out of the blank canvas is immense. If you prefer to have a bare foundation that is perfectly optimized for your favorite widgets, starting a website with this theme is highly recommended. For example, you can add a header and a footer as well as completely change the theme’s design. If you want to reflect your ideas through blogs, galleries, progress bars, and other elements, Hello Elementor makes it easy for you to make any of your web development dreams come true.
Astra multipurpose WordPress theme, in its turn, takes a slightly different approach by providing starter templates as we mentioned above. Unlike Hello Elementor, the provided templates offer distinct customization options, determined by the initial layout you select after downloading and activating the theme. While some options Astra provides may be eCommerce-oriented, others include sections to share tips and news or advertise your services.
| Customization options | Hello Elementor | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Headers & footers | Yes | Yes |
| Elementor widgets | Yes | Yes |
| Page layouts | Requires customization | Yes |
| Sidebar layouts | No | Yes |
| WooCommerce customization | Yes (Elementor Pro required) | Yes |
| Font & color customization | Yes | Yes |
| Megamenu | No | Yes (requires Astra Pro) |
| Gallery customization | Yes | Yes |
| Sliders | Yes (Elementor Pro required) | Yes |
| Shopping cart | Yes (Elementor Pro required) | Yes |
4. Layouts
As with design and customization, both themes offer quite different approaches to layouts included with them. If we compare Hello Elementor vs Astra, it becomes clear that the former offers more creative freedom rather than pre-defined layouts and designs. Due to Elementor being user-friendly and feature-rich, the theme mostly relies on its built-in tools, giving you space for customization and experiments without having to pay for anything besides the builder. Moreover, even the builder can be obtained for free with its core functionality.
When it comes to Astra, you get more variety in layouts. These serve as a ready-made basis for any kind of WordPress website. From portfolios to landing pages, the theme delivers a wide variety of options for your online presence. You can pick something simple to get started with, import it in just a few clicks, and then customize it using your favorite builder. Each layout provided by the theme is unique in its own way, offering new combinations of fonts, buttons, icons, menus, and other UI elements that all can be edited and replaced. Regardless of what you pick, both themes can give you:
- Responsive designs that look great on both desktop and mobile devices;
- Customizable UI elements, ranging from buttons and icons to progress bars and typography;
- Pre-built sections that can simplify and speed up website development;
- Seamless integration with page builders;
- Layouts optimized for performance and loading speed.
| Features | Hello Elementor | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Multipurpose layouts | 1 minimalist design layout | Yes |
| Template import | Manual | Automatic (one-click import) |
| Starter templates | No | Yes, 300+ |
| Layout customization | No | Yes |
| Blog pages | No | Yes |
| Gallery layouts | No | Yes |
| eCommerce templates | No | Yes |
5. Performance
Performance is a vital part of any modern WordPress website. If we compare Hello Elementor vs Astra in terms of loading speed and performance optimization, the difference may not be noticeable right away. Both themes are fast and tackle this task from different angles. For example, the Hello Elementor theme is optimized thanks to the minimal styling, well-configured widgets, and content. Note that the performance may change if you customize the theme and add more widgets.
The second theme in our comparison is also known for being lightweight and optimized. However, this is done by using clean code and decreasing the theme size to less than 50KB. Astra theme also utilizes other techniques to make sure the website you build with it is fast, while retaining the theme’s functionality. The applied performance techniques offer:
- Lazy image loading;
- Vanilla JavaScript;
- Full compatibility with HTTP/2;
- Fast loading times of less than a second.
| Features | Hello Elementor | Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Lightweight theme size | Yes | Yes |
| Designed for Core Web Vitals | Yes | Yes |
| Pre-configured speed optimizations | No | Yes |
| Low dependency on the builder | Only if you use Elementor | Yes (multiple builders supported) |
| Speed tweaks for WooCommerce | No | Yes |
| Average website speed on mobile | 95 | 78 |
| Desktop website speed | 93 | 100 |
Hello Elementor vs Astra: What to Choose?
With all the advantages and differences both solutions have, it may be difficult to choose the right one between Hello Elementor vs Astra WordPress themes. Due to using a minimalist style and offering a barebones design, the Hello Elementor WordPress theme is a perfect choice for those who want to start with something simple but flexible. Thanks to being perfectly compatible with the leading page builder of WordPress and being available for free, this solution becomes a preferable choice if you’re willing to spend more time on customization rather than choosing a ready-made template.
For those who want more flexibility in terms of page builders and design, the Astra free multipurpose WordPress theme may be a better pick. While it also provides free templates, it has a wider range of provided layouts, offering you a great starting point if you just need to add your content instead of customizing every section. Moreover, Astra developers offer their own way to add more to the already diverse range of designs by using the Spectra add-on that can supercharge any design you choose (in case you plan to use the Gutenberg builder and pay a little extra for pre-made pricing packages).
| Hello Elementor | Astra |
|---|---|
| Minimalist design | A wide range of starter templates |
| Extremely lightweight | Light but feature-rich |
| Optimized for Elementor | Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, and other popular builders |
| Supports blog widgets | Multiple blog layouts |
| Header & footecustomizationon | Ready-made layouts for footers and headers |
| Works with Elementor widgets | Great with Elementor widgets and Gutenberg blocks |
| Easy to customize for Elementor addons | Third-party integrations |
| One minimalist layout to fit any customization task | Multiple layouts to get started with |
| Extendable with Elementor Pro features | AI customization support and premium plugins included |
| Perfect for designing from scratch | Great if you need a ready-made design |
Conclusion
We hope this comparison of Hello Elementor vs Astra WordPress themes has helped you make an informed decision regarding their design, customization, and other important factors. Whether you are looking for something reliable and easy-to-edit or flexible and visually diverse, both of these themes can fit your ideas in their own way. Moreover, using themes like these is sure to help your business in other ways, such as:
- Improved website performance: Multipurpose WordPress theme options like the ones mentioned above are built for faster loading times and better user experience. By using them on your website, you not only deliver content on time but also make it fast for your visitors to access it.
- Professional online presence: Thanks to customizable designs, your brand can easily stand out online. This also works for promoting your company’s products and services.
- Higher search engine visibility: With an SEO-friendly page structure, these themes deliver, making it simpler for you to rank higher on Google with authentic content and useful offers.
- Time and cost efficiency: With diverse starter templates like those provided by the Astra WordPress theme, you can save hundreds of hours spent on design work. All you need to do is use a compatible website builder like Elementor and add everything you need.
- Scalability for growth: As your business develops and expands, you can adapt any of these solutions to your needs. For example, you can transform the Hello Elementor theme using widgets and add-ons from a simple blank solution to a complex eCommerce online presence without having to develop everything all over again.
