Astra vs Kadence is the head-to-head that most people reach after they have narrowed the field down to two. Both are free, both are marketed as lightweight, and both hold a 4.9-star rating on WordPress.org. Therefore the choice comes down to details, not headlines.

Here is the short answer. Astra wins on reach and track record: 1,000,000 active installs and 6,531 ratings against Kadence’s 500,000 installs and 455 ratings. Kadence wins on accessibility and modern baseline: it carries the official WordPress.org accessibility-ready tag, which Astra does not. Both paid bundles are advertised at $99 per year, but Astra’s $99 is a promotional rate on a $149 plan.

We checked every number below against WordPress.org and the two official pricing pages on 23 September 2026. Prices and versions move, so treat the figures as a snapshot of that day.

Astra vs Kadence at a glance

Reach: the bigger install base by a wide margin

In fact, Astra is the larger product by every public measure of size. It runs on 1,000,000 active installs, about twice Kadence’s 500,000. Furthermore, it has been downloaded 26,447,781 times against Kadence’s 5,993,956.

The ratings gap matters more than the raw rating. Both themes sit at 4.9 stars, but Astra’s score comes from 6,531 reviews while Kadence’s comes from 455. In other words, the same number rests on fourteen times more feedback. Brainstorm Force also shipped more recently: version 4.13.12 landed on 17 September 2026, nearly two months after Kadence’s last release.

Astra is also the more forgiving install. It still supports WordPress 5.3 and PHP 5.3, so it will run on old, cheap shared hosting where Kadence simply will not activate.

Kadence: accessibility-ready and a modern baseline

Kadence holds something Astra does not: the accessibility-ready tag on WordPress.org. That tag is not self-declared. A volunteer review team tests keyboard navigation, focus states, skip links and colour contrast before a theme may use it, which is why we built our accessible WordPress themes list around it. Astra does not carry that tag.

Kadence also draws a harder line on requirements. Specifically, it needs WordPress 6.3 and PHP 7.4 as a minimum. That rules out ancient hosting, so check your server version before you install it.

One more thing worth knowing: on WordPress.org, Kadence is now published under stellarwp rather than the original Kadence WP account. That is because Kadence is part of the StellarWP group.

Astra vs Kadence pricing: both advertise $99

The advertised entry price is a tie, but the shape of the plans is not.

Astra’s entry bundle is called Astra Pro + AI. It is listed at $149 per year and was discounted to $99 per year on the day we checked, and it renews at the full $149. Importantly, that plan covers up to 3 websites. The same plan also has a one-time licence at $279, down from $449. Above it sit Essential Toolkit + AI at $199 per year (list $299) and Business Toolkit + AI at $279 per year (list $429).

Kadence sells three tiers: Essentials at $99, Pro at $299 and Elite at $499 per year. To begin with, Essentials covers the theme, 30+ blocks and 200+ starter templates. Pro adds WooCommerce Shop Kit, memberships, a security firewall and daily backups. Finally, Elite adds A/B testing, white labelling and multi-site management through Kadence Central. Kadence’s pricing page lists no lifetime option, and it notes that Central plans are priced per site.

So if you run three sites and want to pay once, Astra is cheaper. However, if you want commerce, memberships, security and backups from one vendor, Kadence Pro bundles them at $299 while Astra sells those pieces separately.

Is there a real speed difference between Astra and Kadence?

We did not benchmark the two themes ourselves, so we are not going to publish a winner here. Both are built as lightweight themes, but we have no measurements of our own to offer.

In practice, your page builder, plugins, images and host decide far more than the theme does. Consequently, the honest advice is to test with your own content rather than trusting a demo-site benchmark. If speed is your main concern, our four-way comparison of Kadence, GeneratePress, Blocksy and Astra widens the field to two more lightweight options.

Which should you choose?

Choose Astra if you want the safest bet. It has the larger install base, the deeper pool of reviews, the more recent release and a one-time payment option. It is also the only one of the two that runs on old PHP, which matters on budget hosting.

Choose Kadence if accessibility is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have, because the accessibility-ready tag is verified by a third party. Also choose it if you want WooCommerce tools, memberships, security and backups bundled from one vendor.

Still undecided? Both free versions are complete enough to build a real site, so install each on a staging copy and give them an afternoon. You can also check what a site you admire already runs with our WordPress theme detector, or browse our multipurpose WordPress themes list for alternatives.

Astra vs Kadence: frequently asked questions

Updated on September 23, 2026 by Miloš Novaković in Blog, Comparisons.

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