[Support request] What's the Benefits of GeneratePress Premium over Astra Pro?

[Anil]

I purchased GPP 15 months before, and since then tried others…………..

BUT

I keep coming back to GeneratePress

[Steve]

Hi Luke,

For menu options, Astra has no option for a vertical menu, no option for slide out menu and no option for full screen menu. GeneratePress does not have a full screen option either but Tom provided css to accomplish this and I though I read somewhere in the forums he was thinking of adding this.

If you do a header with logo above the menu and make it sticky both logo and menu stick unlike just the menu on GeneratePress. There is a way to do this by adding the logo to the header and then hiding the main menu. You then set up the main menu in menu below header area and make that sticky. Several steps to accomplish something easy in GeneratePress.

And here’s an odd one, if you use an image background for the menu and make it sticky, the image will disappear and you will get a solid background color on scroll. You can fix this with css, but something I found strange. Also no background image option for drop downs. Again need to fix this with css. I don’t use background images a lot with headers and menus, but occasionally the design calls for a texture background.

When I asked Astra about more header options they indicated they would be coming soon, as was showing on their website for quite a while. That was back in October of 2017. Still waiting.

You can add most of these menu options if you use Elementor Pro, which is great. But in the testing I’ve done I’ve noticed that creating a custom header with Elementor slows the page load times by about half a second. We work with the travel and tourism industry and always use lots of images, so only use this option if needed.

I do agree with you that it would be great to have the option for a mega menu within GeneratePress. Tom did mention the plugins for mega menus, but for us not a great option. Dealing with travel and tourism we need to make sure our sites are WCAG 2 compliant. Many lawsuits going on within the travel industry over this. GeneratePress is WCAG 2 compliant which is great, but many of the plugins for mega menus are not.

Agree 100% with the support forum format. I think I’ve only needed to ask one or two support question over the years as I’ve found all the answers I’ve needed in the forums. Not so with Astra. In fact support answers from Astra don’t always solve an issue. For example, I asked if they had a way to align the Add to Cart buttons on WooCommerce product page. After four emails over four days they provided css that didn’t work.

For me it’s come down more stable updates and great support. Both of which I feel are extremely important when doing client sites. Plus I just find GenreatePress easier to work with.

Sorry for how long this is. Hope it helps.

Steve

[Luke]

Hey Steve,

Thanks for your reply – and information about the headers.

Always good to hear of others personal experience.

Cheers,

Luke

[Morgan]

Not spending 4 billion hours trying to manually get the spacing between elements even was what drove me away from Astra.

THIS!

I bailed on Astra bcoz there were way too many WHY/WTF!? moments.
Also found their support wildly overrated. Responsive, yes, sensical, no.

With GP any head scratching moments have been promptly responded to AND sensically.

It is worth noting that I’ve found it faster to get up a site with Astra, manly coz many more templates – import, IF ONLY MINOR tweaks with Elementor, then live.

But if building a solid, lightweight and lean site – I’d choose GP every time.

[Leo]

Thanks Morgan 🙂

[Michael]

Hi Luke,

I’ve built with both Astra Pro and GeneratePress Premium – much prefer GeneratePress Premium. It’s just better thought-out, Customizer options are superior, support more direct. Never going back to Astra. BTW, over a period of a couple of years, I’ve stopped using the other products from Brainstorm (the folks who created Astra). I kept running into bugs and limitations that irked me after a while. I replaced Brainstorm’s Convert Pro with Elementor Pro popups (MUCH better), Elementor Pro also made Ultimate Addons unnecessary, and I replaced Schema Pro with Yoast and manual code. Beaver Builder + Astra are pretty good. But Elementor Pro + GP Premium are best in class solutions.

[Luke]

Thanks for the reply Michael.

GeneratePress support is definitely top notch.

And interesting to hear about your experience with the Brainstorm UA for Elementor, Convert Pro and Schema Pro, and your personal workarounds.

Thanks again for sharing.

[Luke]

Also, I haven’t used Convert Pro and Schema Pro yet, but they do get excellent reviews when comparing to other options out there (such as OptinMonster, Sumo, Elementor Pro popups, etc). But, like with anything online, there’s many ways to skin a cat, so to speak. And it’s about finding what works best for the individual’s or company’s needs.

[Author]

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