Themeisle has built and launched several WordPress products in the last ten years. Neve is its latest theme. It is a fast-growing top-rated WordPress template with over 300k users. Astra has around a million users and has an excellent rating of 5. It was built and launched by Brainstorm Force in 2017 and is one of the most used WordPress templates. Is Neve better than it, or similar? Which theme has more options? Below, we’ve compared these two WP templates.
Mega menus
In Neve, you must enter the mega menu CSS class to the menu to add the mega menu functionally to your website. You must also enter the mega menu’s column class name to the menu to add columns to the mega menu.
In Astra, you must activate the mega menu addon and head over to the menu settings page to activate the mega menu. The theme will create columns automatically from the submenus. The two responsive WP templates let you set a heading for the menu columns.
Header builder
The two themes include a dedicated header builder tool. They let you customize the header with their drag-and-drop editor. Many templates will display the same header for mobile devices, desktops, and tablets. In Neve, the header for the desktop and mobile variants of the site can be different. Sites built with the Astra can have different headers for tablets, mobiles, and desktops.
In both templates, headers can have a search icon. You can customize this icon and change its position. For instance, the search icon on the header can be on the left side of the header on phones and on the right side on desktops.
The free edition of Neve lets you insert six items in the header. Astra supports eight header items. Its free edition supports a single search form style. The Pro version supports 2+ styles. The two WordPress themes let you change the row’s height, the color of the menus, font size, header background color, border color, etc.
Neve supports these three header row layouts – contained, full-width, and full-width contained. You cannot change the layout of header rows in Astra. The header in this template is divided into three sections – header top, header main, and header bottom. Astra’s header is also divided into three parts, but the parts are unnamed. The Pro version of these 2 themes supports 15+ header elements.
Footer builder
The footer builder tool of the two templates is similar to the header builder tool. Neve footer parts are named footer top, footer main, and footer bottom. Like the header, Astra’s footer parts are not named. In Astra, you must add widgets or supported elements to the footer by clicking on the footer part’s grid and choosing the elements of your choice. The element can be a widget, social sharing icons, etc. In Neve, the user must first add one of these blocks to the footer grid – footer one, footer two, footer three, footer four and then click on the gear icon of the block to add widget/HTML code/text, etc. You can’t add a widget unless you add one of these blocks to the footer grid.
Form fields customization
Neve allows you to customize the form items i.e. input boxes, labels, etc. You can change the input field’s color, padding, size, the font size in it. The theme also lets you change the label font size, letter spacing, and line height. Its free edition comes with two button styles – primary and security. Astra doesn’t let you customize the form elements. It ships with six button preset. The two templates let their users create a custom button theme by changing the border radius, color, font size, etc of the buttons.
Typography
Typography management is one of the top features of Astra and Neve. You can change the font family, size, etc, of all elements of the sites. The font of the header, post title, post body, footer, sidebar widgets, etc can be different in these two themes.
Blog page/single post
The Gutenberg editor lets you create a homepage with a grid that displays a list of recent or any post posts of your choice. APro supports the grid homepage/archive page style. Its free version will only show a list of posts. Neve comes with these three archive post styles – list, covers, and grid. It has the option to enable masonry-style grids. Its Pro version supports the masonry style.
Neve single post items are not grouped, but in Astra, the items are grouped into these two categories – structure and meta. Its single post items are comments, content, title & meta, thumbnail tags, and post navigation. The Structure group contains two items – featured image, title & blog meta. The Meta group has these items – comments, category, author, publish date, and tag. You cannot move the items from the Meta group to the Structure group in Astra i.e. You cannot move the comments section above the post title in Astra, but you can do so in Neve.
The two templates enable users to change the order of the meta info i.e. You can configure the themes to post the date first, followed by the author name, comments link, etc. If you don’t want the theme to display any of these meta info items, you can hide them. Infinite scrolling is a free feature in Neve and a Pro feature in its counterpart.
Neve Pro features:
Header booster: This addon adds 15 new elements you can put in the header. You can create a different header for different pages of the website. Neve header booster lets you create sticky and transparent headers.
Custom layouts: With this addon, you can create a 404 page and build custom headers. Once you create a layout, you can insert it anywhere on the site with the hook system of the theme.
Blog booster: Neve’s Blog Booster addon adds social sharing buttons, the time required to read the article, and custom article sorting functions to the site.
Astra Pro features:
Footer layouts: This module adds new footer layouts to your site. Once you choose a layout, you can add columns to the layout as per your requirements.
Space control: This module adds spacing control options to the WordPress live customizer tool.
Header designs and header: APro includes extra elements for designing the header. It supports sticky/transparent headers and lets users create a custom header for their sites.
Pricing
Themeisle offers these three Neve Pro subscription plans – Personal, Business, and Agency. The plans are priced at 70, 176, and 306 dollars. Themeisle doesn’t have lifetime Neve subscription plans. Brainstorm Force has launched lifetime and yearly subscription plans for Astra. The cheapest annual plan costs 59 dollars. The other two annual plans are Essential Bundle and Growth Bundle. The plans cost 276 and 523 dollars. The Lifetime Astra Pro, Essential Bundle, and Growth Bundle plans are priced at 239, 499, and 699 dollars.
