Astra vs Hello: Which One Powers Elementor Sites Better?

Choosing between Astra and Hello for your next Elementor website? You’re not alone. 

With both themes being favorites among WordPress users, it’s easy to feel stuck. 

Astra offers powerful customization and performance, while Hello’s minimalist design promises speed and simplicity. 

But which one truly gives you the best of both worlds?

In this Astra vs Hello showdown, we’ll explore which theme fits your needs – whether you’re looking for design flexibility, top-notch performance, or the best bang for your buck. 

Let’s dive in and find out!

How Astra and Hello Work

Astra and Hello both have their unique approaches to building websites.

Let’s take a look at how each theme works.

Hello Theme: A Minimalist Approach

The Hello theme is essentially a blank slate, designed specifically for use with the Elementor page builder.

It’s like starting with an almost-clean canvas where you build every element from scratch.

By stripping away elements like headers, footers, and sidebars, it offers unparalleled flexibility.

Hello is incredibly lightweight, which can significantly boost website speed.

It also provides complete control over every aspect of your design.

However, this means you’ll have a lot more work to do to build something amazing.

You’ll also need to use Elementor to create even the most basic elements.

Astra Theme: A Versatile Foundation

Astra is a complete WordPress theme that offers a more structured starting point.

While it works seamlessly with Elementor, you can use it independently to build any type of website you want.

Astra isn’t a blank canvas. It comes with preset designs, layouts, and essential elements to quickly launch a website.

You still have complete design freedom though. You can customize the header, footer, archive pages, sidebars, or buttons however you like.

You can also build everything from scratch for a more personalized experience using the built-in site builder.

Whether you’re creating a simple blog or a complex eCommerce store, Astra is optimized for speed and performance.

Astra vs Hello: Built-in Features

Hello is a minimal theme that offers just a few options, such as adding a logo or additional CSS.

For everything else, you’ll need the Elementor page builder.

Here’s the theme customizer layout that Hello offers by default:

In contrast, Astra is very generous with customization controls, offering options in multiple areas, even in the free version.

If you want something different from the default layout, there are presets in nearly every area.

Let’s compare some of them.

Global Settings

The Hello and Elementor combo allows you to work on fonts, colors, background, and button styles across your site.

You can set these elements for every page on your site from Elementor’s global settings area.

With Astra, all the global settings are part of the basic theme. You don’t need an extra plugin to customize anything.

From the theme customizer, you can tweak typography, colors, buttons, containers, blocks, and more, however you like.

Header and Footer

When you install a theme, it typically includes all the essential elements, even though the default design may look basic.

Hello has no real header or footer in its default state. You can only add a logo or site title with a navigation menu.

But with Elementor on hand, you can change fonts, colors, and the size of the logo, tagline, and menu items.

You can also adjust margins, word gaps, and content width.

However, there is no option to customize your header or footer without upgrading to Elementor Pro.

In contrast, the default Astra theme gives you a fully functioning header out of the box, which you can customize using the native WordPress Customizer.

The free Astra theme lets you choose from preset header options and even allows you to set a transparent header.

You can add a custom last menu item as a button, widget, social icon, text/HTML, and much more.

You can do all those things to your footer too.

If you want more, install a Starter Template and you’ll get a fully functioning design ready to add your unique personality!

Blog Archive Page

A blog archive page lists all of your blog posts.

Hello comes with a single archive page with no styling. It just uses an H2 for the blog title and regular paragraph text for the content.

Additionally, there’s no metadata for the posts – it’s just the post title and content.

Astra provides a completely styled blog archive page along with post metadata for:

• Publish date
• Category
• Author

You can also control your blog archive layout and metadata via the WordPress Customizer, offering a range of options.

Blog and Comments Section

On a single blog page, Hello uses an H1 for the post title and regular paragraph text.

It adds some basic styling for the comments and comment form, but you’ll need to do a lot of work in Elementor Pro to make things look good.

Notice how, as with the blog archive page, Hello does not add featured images or any post metadata for the author, category or other information.

Astra adds this metadata by default and also includes a fully styled comments section.

You can also notice elements such as “Scroll to top” for a better user experience.

If you want to customize anything, there are preset layouts and numerous options to personalize your blog post layout.

WooCommerce

If you try to use Hello with WooCommerce, you’ll get a somewhat styled product page via WooCommerce’s built-in settings.

However, you’ll likely need to build out all your content using Elementor Pro.

Astra includes its own built-in styling for WooCommerce.

Your WooCommerce content will automatically adapt colors and typography without you having to do a thing.

You can even place a cart button in the header, allowing shoppers to quickly navigate to the checkout page from anywhere.

Astra vs Hello: Performance Comparison

We know that Hello is a minimalist theme and doesn’t include basic website elements, such as a header or footer.

In theory, it should load faster than Astra, which is a more complete theme with all the bells and whistles.

However, Astra is optimized for speed.

Not only is Astra a performance hound on its own, it also works incredibly well with Elementor.

It maintains excellent performance despite all the extra code added by the page builder.

To make this Astra vs Hello performance comparison meaningful, we tested them both using Pingdom.

We measured performance individually as well as with Elementor.

Here are the scenarios we used:

• Astra
• Hello
• Astra + Elementor
• Hello + Elementor

Speed Test – Pingdom

	Page Size	Load Time	HTTP Requests
Astra	56.2 KB	540 ms	8
Hello	34.3 KB	465 ms	9
Astra + Elementor	57 KB	1.22 s	8
Hello + Elementor	102.2 KB	1.36 s	15

We kept things consistent in each test by choosing Washington D.C. as the server location.

The results speak for themselves.

While Hello might have loaded faster in the first test, it’s important to remember that Hello doesn’t include a header, footer, buttons, or any styling.

In contrast, Astra still shows strong performance, despite including everything that Hello doesn’t have.

Things get more interesting when we add Elementor.

We did this for two reasons: to give Hello a fair chance and to test Astra’s compatibility with Elementor.

Plus, Hello isn’t really capable of much without Elementor, so there’s that too.

We expected Hello to outperform Astra, but the results were surprising.

With Hello, the number of HTTP requests and page size nearly doubled, which increased load time.

Astra vs Hello: Free Templates

If you use the Hello theme, you’ll need to build your site from scratch.

If that’s what you’re looking for, Hello is a fantastic option.

While Elementor does offer a variety of page and block templates, it doesn’t allow you to import an entire website.

Astra does.

It provides a large library of free Elementor templates (called Starter Templates) that you can import with just a few clicks.

Many of these Starter Templates are built for Elementor.

They also come pre-configured with Astra’s WordPress Customizer settings, making it easier for you to get started.

Astra vs Hello: Block Editor Compatibility

When it comes to compatibility with the WordPress block editor, Astra is the clear winner.

Astra works seamlessly with the block editor, allowing you to create and customize your website using an intuitive drag and drop interface.

Astra offers full-width and wide alignment options, lets you style core blocks to match your site’s design, and ensures content looks great on all devices.

Hello is primarily designed to work with the Elementor page builder.

You can perform basic customizations with the WordPress editor but you really need Elementor to do anything meaningful.

If you prefer working with the WordPress block editor, Astra is definitely the better choice.

Here’s an in-depth comparison of the block editor vs Elementor.

Price Comparison

This Astra vs. Hello comparison has mainly focused on the free versions, but it’s important to consider the cost of premium too.

Astra Pro starts at $49/year.

You get access to a variety of built-in layouts, modern WooCommerce stores, and a powerful site builder that lets you design exactly how you want.

Astra is fully compatible with the Elementor page builder, which brings us to the Essential Toolkit plan for $79/year.

The Essential Toolkit includes the Ultimate Addons for Elementor (UAE), adding lots of powerful premium widgets to Elementor.

You also get access to over 145 Elementor-based premium Starter Templates to kick-start your website.

This plan includes Spectra Pro, a page builder with over 100 premium templates of its own.

Both Astra plans include expert guidance and premium customer support.

Note: Astra’s pre-built templates include sections, pages, and full-site templates.

When discussing the price of Hello, we’re mainly talking about Elementor Pro.

Elementor Pro starts at $59/year.

This basic plan is suitable for beginners who want to explore Elementor Pro.

However, you’ll find that several essential features are missing from this basic plan.

For instance, the basic plan does not include global widgets, role manager, display conditions, WooCommerce dynamic tags, form integration, and many other features.

To access all features, you would need to upgrade to Elementor Pro’s Advanced plan for $99/year.

What Users Say

Astra has over 5,500 reviews on WordPress.org, whereas Hello has just over 100.

This isn’t to discredit Hello, as most users tend to review the Elementor plugin rather than the Hello theme.

Despite the difference in numbers, it’s worth noting what real users have to say about both themes.

Here are some real user comments for both Astra and Hello:

Astra

Hello

As you can see, feedback tells an undeniable story. One we agree with wholeheartedly.

Astra vs Hello: Which One Is Better?

Astra is a comprehensive WordPress theme with the flexibility to be used with or without Elementor.

Hello is a barebones theme that’s 100% dependent on Elementor.

If you’re lucky, you can use the free version. If you need more features, you’ll likely need to upgrade to Elementor Pro.

Choose Astra if:

• You want to customize everything from the WordPress Customizer, not just Elementor.
• You want a full theme with built-in header, footer, buttons, blog layouts, and WooCommerce styling.
• You want a high-performance theme that pairs well with or without Elementor.
• You would prefer to install a template for a head start when building.

Choose Hello if:

• You want to build everything yourself using a very barebones theme.
• You’re looking for the most lightweight Elementor theme possible.

For most Elementor users, Astra is the more practical option.

Astra is lightweight, pairs perfectly with Elementor, and provides more built-in customization options to save you time and money.

Plus, there are over 250 Starter Templates that could deliver a full website in minutes.

Still using Astra’s free version? Take your website to the next level, upgrade to Astra Pro.

Which theme would you choose for your next Elementor project? Share your thoughts in the comments.