Both Astra and Kadence are genuinely good WordPress themes. Either one can power a fast, well-designed website. But “both are great” isn’t helpful when you need to pick one, so this article gets specific.
We’ll compare them factor by factor and give a clear verdict on each one.
Table Of Contents
| Astra | Kadence | |
|---|---|---|
| Active installs | 1.8M+ | 400K+ |
| Free version | Generous | Generous |
| WooCommerce features | Strong (Pro) | Requires Ultimate plan |
| Block builder | Astra + Spectra | Kadence + Kadence Blocks |
| Elementor compatibility | Excellent | Good |
| Header/footer builder | Yes (free) | Yes (free) |
| Starter templates | 300+ | 200+ |
| Pro pricing (entry) | $69/year | $99/year |
The block editor is now the default way to build in WordPress. The theme you pair with it and the blocks plugin that comes with it, makes a big difference to what you can actually build without writing code.
Spectra runs inside the native WordPress block editor. No separate interface, no context switching, you build in Gutenberg and Spectra adds to it.
The Container block is the foundation. It supports Flex, Grid, Flow, and Constrained layout modes, with justification, orientation, and direction controls available per block. That covers the layout primitives most developers reach for without needing custom CSS.
On top of the layout layer, Spectra ships:
Kadence pairs with Kadence Blocks, which also runs natively inside Gutenberg. The Section block handles the same flex layout controls, direction, alignment, vertical alignment, gap, and the right panel structure looks nearly identical to Spectra’s.
Block coverage is strong: query loops, advanced headings, icon lists, testimonials, tabs, accordions. Where it falls short is in features that require separate plugins — there’s no native Popup Builder, no built-in Login/Registration blocks, and dynamic content support is more limited without additional tooling.
The “use Kadence for Gutenberg” advice made sense a couple of years ago. It doesn’t anymore. Spectra matches Kadence Blocks on core layout features and goes further with the Popup Builder and Login/Registration blocks built in. Astra + Spectra is a complete Gutenberg build stack, not a fallback for people who don’t want Elementor.
Most WooCommerce stores need more than basic product pages. Cart drawers, quick view, AJAX add-to-cart — these are the features that affect conversion rates, and they’re not equal across both themes.
Astra’s WooCommerce module is configured through the Customizer. Single product pages have container layout presets (full-width, content-centered, boxed), container style options, and sidebar layout controls. That’s the visible UI layer.
The more significant features sit underneath — available on Astra Pro:
Kadence’s WooCommerce Customizer panel covers single product layout presets (five visual options), breadcrumb/title area placement, sidebar assignment, and content style controls. The layout control is solid for basic stores.
Woo templates, checkout enhancements, advanced reviews, and more ecommerce specific features are not available in the standard Kadence theme or the Essentials plan. These features require Shop Kit, which is only included in the Pro plan at $299/year and that license covers a single site.
The practical difference for developers is where WooCommerce features unlock. Astra includes the full set at the entry Pro plan. With Kadence, you need to step up to the Pro tier to access comparable store features.
Read: Elementor + WooCommerce: How to build an amazing ecommerce website
Elementor is still the most widely used page builder in WordPress. If it’s part of your workflow, or you want the option to use it later, how well your theme supports it matters.
Astra was built with Elementor compatibility as a core feature. The theme and page builder work seamlessly together, and Astra’s starter templates have a large Elementor-specific library. If you use Elementor, Astra is the most natural pairing in the market.
Kadence is compatible with Elementor, but it isn’t optimised for it the way Astra is. Starter templates for Elementor exist but the selection is much smaller than Astra’s. Kadence is designed around native Gutenberg — Elementor works, but it’s not the primary focus.
If Elementor is your builder of choice, Astra is the better fit. More starter templates, better integration, and a larger ecosystem of Elementor-specific resources.
A visual header/footer builder used to be a premium feature. Both themes now include one for free, but there are differences in how capable and flexible each one is.
Astra includes a visual header/footer builder in the free version. You can build multi-row headers, sticky headers, transparent headers per page, and separate mobile header layouts — all without touching code or paying for Pro.
Kadence was one of the first themes to ship a native header/footer builder, which was a big part of its early popularity. The builder is still good — same core functionality as Astra with multi-row layouts, sticky and transparent options, and responsive controls.
Both themes offer comparable header/footer builders for free. Kadence had the head start, Astra caught up. Neither has a meaningful edge here today.
Starting from a blank canvas adds hours to every project. A good template library gets you to something presentable quickly, especially when you’re building for a client in a niche you haven’t worked in before.
Astra has 300+ starter website templates spanning a wide range of industries — restaurants, healthcare, law firms, courses, nonprofits, ecommerce, portfolios, and more. The breadth is useful for agencies who need a starting point for almost any client niche. Astra also integrates with ZipWP for AI-generated starter sites.
Kadence has around 200 starter templates. The designs are clean and modern with a consistent visual style, but the library is significantly smaller. If you need a template for a specific niche, there’s a good chance it doesn’t exist in Kadence’s library.
More templates, more niche coverage, and an AI generation option. For agencies especially, Astra’s library reduces the amount of building from scratch.
Read: 280+ Elementor templates for every niche
Both themes have free versions worth using. But once you need Pro features, the pricing structures are different enough that the cheaper option depends entirely on what you’re actually building.
| Plan | Price | Sites | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited | Header/footer builder, free templates, basic WooCommerce |
| Astra Pro | $69/year | 3 | Advanced features, full WooCommerce module, 3 sites |
| Astra Pro + AI | $99/year | 3 | All Pro features + AI site generation + 1 hosted website + 1 domain |
| Essential Toolkit + AI | $199/year | 10 | All Pro features + Ultimate Addon for Elementor + Premium Starter Templates + AI site generation + 2 hosted website + 1 domain |
| Business Toolkit + AI | $279/year | 1000 | All Pro features (1000 websites) + Ultimate Addon for Elementor + Premium Starter Templates + SureForms Agency + AI site generation + + AI Site Planner + 2 hosted website + 1 domain |
| Plan | Price | Sites | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited | Header/footer builder, 200+ templates |
| Essentials | $99/year | 1 | Theme + Kadence Blocks Pro, 200+ starter templates |
| Pro | $299/year | 1 | Adds Shop Kit for WooCommerce, security, backups, memberships |
| Elite | $499/year | 1 | Adds multi-site management, white label, A/B testing |
At every comparable tier, Astra delivers more for less. The gap is widest on WooCommerce — Astra Pro at $69/year vs Kadence Pro at $299/year for comparable store features.
Worth noting: all Kadence plans are single-site licenses. Astra Pro covers 3 sites at the same $99/year price point, making the gap considerably wider for anyone managing more than one project.
Theme performance benchmarks are everywhere, and most of them are misleading. Here’s what the numbers actually mean for real sites.
Astra is lightweight with optimised code and Vanilla JavaScript. It loads under 50KB of resources and scores consistently well on Core Web Vitals.
Kadence is also well-optimised, loads only the resources each page needs, and performs comparably to Astra on standard benchmarks.
Both themes are fast. The millisecond differences you’ll see in controlled benchmarks don’t translate to meaningful real-world differences. Your hosting, images, and caching setup will matter far more than which of these two themes you pick.
Read: 14 fastest WordPress themes (Tested & compared)
When something breaks or you can’t figure out how to do something, the quality of documentation and community resources determines how long you’re stuck.
Astra has been around since 2017 and has built up comprehensive documentation, video tutorials, an active Facebook community, and email support. With 1.8M+ active installs, finding community answers, third-party tutorials, and solved problems is easy.
Kadence has solid documentation and a responsive support team. The community is smaller and newer, so the depth of third-party tutorials and forum answers is narrower — though it’s growing quickly.
A larger install base means more tutorials, more solved problems, and more resources outside of official documentation. For anyone learning as they go, that ecosystem matters.
Kadence is a well-built theme. But the conventional wisdom that positions it as the Gutenberg choice and Astra as the Elementor choice is no longer accurate.
Astra + Spectra is a complete Gutenberg build system. The WooCommerce features in Astra Pro outperform Kadence at every price point below $299/year. The template library is larger. The install base is bigger. And the entry price is lower.
Kadence earns the recommendation for builders already committed to its ecosystem. For everyone else, Astra is the stronger starting point in 2026.
Sujay Pawar is the co-founder and CEO of Brainstorm Force. He brings a one-of-a-kind fusion of tech brilliance, business savvy and marketing mojo to the table. Sujay has consistently spearheaded the development of innovative products like Astra, CartFlows, ZipWP and many others that have become market leaders in their respective niches.
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