Kadence vs. Astra: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Showdown (2025)

Kadence and Astra have established themselves as versatile, high-performing WordPress themes that can adapt to virtually any website’s needs. These lightweight themes are similar in some key ways. Both offer a selection of starter templates, plus extensive customization options. Each comes in free and premium versions, so users can try them out before committing.

But which one is truly the better choice for your website or that client project you’re working on? This detailed comparison will help you decide based on your specific needs.

Let’s look at how these themes stack up in several key areas.

Kadence vs. Astra: Comparing the Free Themes

Let’s start by focusing on what’s available in the free themes, starting with Kadence. While many free themes offer limited customization options, Kadence provides extensive capabilities to edit and change key layout and design details. It doesn’t feel like a stripped-down teaser but rather a complete theme that will satisfy many users without requiring an upgrade.

The free Kadence theme comes with a drag-and-drop header and footer builder, global typography and color controls, and integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce. 

It also provides several pre-designed starter templates for quickly setting up a site (at the time of writing this article, 48 free starter templates are available). These features combine to make Kadence one of the most versatile and user-friendly free themes.

Now, let’s look at Astra theme. A few years ago, Kadence had a significant advantage over Astra in terms of the free themes, but Astra has significantly improved. 

Like Kadence, the header and footer can be customized, settings are available for site-wide colors and typography, and more. As you’ll see in the screenshot below, the Customizer experience in Astra is very similar to Kadence.

Astra also offers a collection of starter templates. At the time of writing this article, more than 100 starter templates are available without purchasing the Pro version.

Winner: Tie

The free versions of Kadence and Astra are both excellent options. Kadence offers more customization settings in some areas, but Astra provides a bigger selection of free starter templates.

Starter Templates

Pre-designed templates significantly reduce the time needed to launch a website and make it possible for non-designers to create a professional-looking site.

Kadence offers 85+ starter templates, plus AI starter templates that produce layouts, designs, content, and images based on user prompts. Starter templates are available for a wide range of industries and website types.

Astra offers an impressive collection of over 300 starter templates, covering various industries and use cases. Additionally, Astra offers AI capabilities to build custom websites in minutes.

Using a starter template as the foundation for your site is easy, regardless of whether you choose Kadence or Astra. You’ll decide which template to use, click a button, and the template and demo content will be imported to your site. Then, you can edit the content, replace the images, and make whatever design changes you prefer.

Winner: Astra

Kadence has an excellent selection of starter templates, but Astra’s collection is bigger, plus the search function is better for finding the template you want.

WordPress Customizer

The ability to customize layouts and designs without touching code is essential for most WordPress users, and both themes offer robust customization options. Kadence and Astra use the native WordPress Customizer for site-wide control, so let’s see how they compare.

Kadence makes it easy to tweak a site using the WordPress Customizer. For example, the screenshot below shows the color settings, which will impact the color scheme site-wide.

There are far more options and settings available than we can cover here. You’ll find customizable settings for colors, typography, header, footer, layout, sidebar, page/post layout, search results, and much more. In the screenshot below, you’ll see some of the settings for controlling the layout’s width and spacing.

Like Kadence, Astra provides extensive no-code customization options, including site-wide settings in the WordPress Customizer. The experience in the Customizer is also very similar to what we showed above with Kadence. For example, the screenshot below shows Astra’s color options.

And below, you’ll see that the layout options are also similar to what Kadence offers.

Although the Customizer options and experience are very similar with both themes, Kadence edges Astra in a few small areas, including better control over granular details like spacing and padding. 

Winner: Kadence

Although both themes offer excellent customization options, Kadence comes out slightly ahead.

Page Level Customizations

In addition to the site-wide settings in the Customizer, Kadence provides additional options for page-level settings and drag-and-drop capabilities through the Kadence Blocks plugin. 

On the page level, users can:

• Enable or disable the header or footer
• Set the header to transparent
• Enable or disable the page title
• Change the page width
• Enable or disable a sidebar
• Move the sidebar to the left or right
• Select a boxed or unboxed style
• Adjust the content spacing
• Enable or disable the featured image.

These page-level settings make it possible to create custom pages for specific purposes (for example, landing pages). 

When it comes to editing the main page or post content, the Kadence Blocks plugin takes over. This drag-and-drop builder offers a large library of pre-designed elements and provides fine control over almost any page layout or style needed. 

The screenshot below shows a small selection of the 70+ options for adding a pre-designed hero section to a website. It’s important to note that most of the pre-designed elements require the pro version, but there are several free options as well.

After you add any elements from the design library to your page, you can customize the settings in the block editor to suit your needs. 

Aside from Kadence Blocks, the Kadence theme is also compatible with Elementor and other popular WordPress page builders.

Like Kadence, Astra also provides extensive options for editing and customizing at the page level. The screenshot below shows the available settings. You can:

• Set the page width
• Choose a boxed or unboxed design
• Show or hide the sidebar
• Move the sidebar to the left or right
• Enable or disable the header
• Enable or disable the footer
• Enable or disable the banner area

While Kadence offers pre-designed sections through its design library, Astra does the same thing with the Spectra Library. There are sections for headers, portfolios, contact forms, service lists, and other elements you can use to build custom pages. As is the case with Kadence, some of the sections are free, and others require the pro version.

Winner: Kadence

These two themes are very close in terms of page-level customizations. Kadence gets a slight edge for having more options and variety in its design library.

WooCommerce Integration

WooCommerce compatibility and customization options are critical considerations for those who want to sell directly from their websites.

Kadence offers outstanding support for WooCommerce from both the free and pro theme versions. Users can easily modify the appearance and layout of their store, including adjustments to product grid layouts, image sizes, button styles, and typography. Kadence also allows users to create tailored shopping experiences with unique designs for product archives, individual product pages, and category pages. 

The screenshot below shows a small sample of the WooCommerce settings available in the Customizer (these settings won’t show up unless the WooCommerce plugin is activated).

As is the case with standard pages, posts, and archives, Kadence provides a great deal of control over the layout and design of product, category, and catalog pages. 

Additionally, Kadence offers several pre-designed starter templates for WooCommerce, speeding up the process of creating an e-commerce website. 

Either version of Astra (free or pro) can be used with WooCommerce. While Astra’s WooCommerce options and settings have improved over the years, they still lag behind Kadence in a few areas.

For example, when customizing the product page template, Kadence offers certain things that Astra does not, including:

• Vertical spacing control
• The option to display custom quantities
• Display of variations horizontally or vertically
• Show weights and dimensions
• Normal or centered tab style

Other settings related to the tab format.

It’s worth noting that Astra also has a few settings not offered by Kadence, like a sticky add-to-cart button, but overall, Kadence comes out ahead.

Winner: Kadence

Customer Support

Both Kadence and Astra offer extensive documentation to help users looking for guidance. This includes text and video tutorials covering most aspects of theme setup and customization. Both also provide support through an email ticket system for users needing personalized assistance.

Currently, neither offers support via online chat or phone.

Winner: Tie

Performance

Both Kadence and Astra have excellent reputations for performance. We tested them with GTmetrix, and the results are below, but it’s important to emphasize that this is just a single test and your experience may differ.

For an even comparison, we installed the free version of each theme and one of the free starter templates. No other plugins were active, and the testing was done on the same domain using basic shared hosting from Bluehost.

Kadence’s scores:

• Overall grade: A
• Performance: 94%
• Structure: 97%
• LCP: 1.3s
• TBT: 0ms
• CLS: 0

Here’s a screenshot of Astra’s performance.

Astra’s scores:

• Overall grade: A
• Performance: 98%
• Structure: 95%
• LCP: 964ms
• TBT: 8ms
• CLS: 0

Astra beat Kadence in a few areas, and Kadence beat Astra in a few other areas, but all of the scores were very close. Based on this test, the performance difference between the two themes is negligible. 

Keep in mind, this test was done on a basic site with little content. Your results may vary.

Winner: Tie

Price

Comparing Kadence and Astra on price is challenging because it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Each theme offers a few different plans, and the details differ.

Kadence offers the following plans:

Features	Express	Plus	Ultimate
Price	$69	$169	$299
# of sites	3	10	25
Free & premium starter templates	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free & premium pattern designs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom fonts	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mega menus & advanced navigation	No	Yes	Yes
Premium header widgets	No	Yes	Yes
Dynamic content sources	No	Yes	Yes
Popups & slide-ins	No	No	Yes
A/B testing	No	No	Yes

The table above is a small sample showing select features. For a full comparison of the packages, see Kadence’s pricing page.

Astra’s pricing is different because each plan is available for a single website, or you can select a license for more sites. The table below shows the pricing of plans for use on one website.

Features	Pro	Essential Toolkit	Business Toolkit
Price	$49	$79	$149
# of sites	1	1	1
Pe-built layouts	Yes	Yes	Yes
WooCommerce integration	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ultimate addons for Elementor	No	Yes	Yes
Elementor premium starter templates	No	Yes	Yes
Spectra Pro page builder	No	Yes	Yes
SureFeedback	No	No	Yes
SureWriter Pro	No	No	Yes

For a more detailed breakdown, see Astra’s pricing page.

Winner: Tie 

Astra starts at a lower price, but Kadence offers more for the money.

Astra vs. Kadence: Conclusion

Both of these popular themes offer compelling features for designers and end users. The right choice ultimately depends on your specific priorities and needs.

Astra shines with its extensive template library, making it an excellent choice if you want to get a professional-looking site up and running quickly. Kadence, on the other hand, offers more comprehensive features in its free version and excels in customization options and WooCommerce integration. If you plan to build a highly customized site or an e-commerce store, Kadence may be the better option.

In the end, your specific requirements and preferences should guide your final decision. And remember, you can try the free version of each theme to see which one you like better.