Celebrating 1 Million Active Installs!

I am so thrilled to make an exciting announcement. ??

Today, my team and I here at Astra are ecstatic and beyond excited to announce the highest milestone any non-default theme on WordPress.org has accomplished.

We are proud to be the only non-default theme on WordPress.org to have achieved 1 Million+ active installs milestone. ?

We recognize that this is not an ordinary feat.

On behalf of the entire Brainstorm Force team, I’d like to express our sincere gratitude to each and every member of the Astra community for supporting us. ?

I’d like to pause for a moment, bow down and thank everyone for all the love and support we continue to receive from you.

If possible, I would mention all the million website owners and webmasters who have entrusted Astra over all the other options in the WordPress repository. However, it’s not physically possible. Instead, here’s what I will do. I am sending a million smiles and hugs to all of you! ?

We feel very fortunate to have you in the community and we promise to keep listening, learning, and delivering on our products that save your time and help you grow your business.

So, let’s take a quick look at our journey this far, and our team’s achievements over the past 3 years!

The Launch of Astra — a Commitment to Delivering the Best Possible Website Building Experience

Before Astra, — we (at Brainstorm Force) were just like you. We built websites for clients around the world. So, we’ve had first-hand experience of the challenges and frustrations that web developers usually face. We realized that there was a need for a fast, lightweight, flexible, reliable, and user-friendly WordPress theme. 

We wanted to create something to scratch our own itch, for our own clients and ourselves. That’s our origin story!

Our Journey from 0 to 1 Million

Here’s a quick recap of our journey so far, and some milestones we have hit on the way.

It took us over 4 months to hit the first 10,000 downloads. Then in less than a year, we quintupled to 50,000 downloads. 

However, the pace started to accelerate after that. It doubled to 100,000 installs in the next 4 months. And after that, it took us 14 months to quintuple to 500,000 installs. 

500k installs, in itself, is a fantastic milestone. We announced that milestone here in this blog post. 

I still remember the day we reached the 500k milestone. The entire Brainstorm Force family celebrated and yes, we had a party! Take a glimpse of happy faces we met every day back then.

What took us by surprise is how fast it doubled again, and we hit the 1 million downloads milestone in less than 8 months after that.

It took us almost 28 months to hit the first 500k installs, and then 8 months after that, we hit the 1 million milestones.

This time, it would have been bigger since this came much sooner. But, we all are working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All we can do is meet virtually and see those happy smiles back again.

We are beyond humbled to see the accelerated adoption of Astra within the WordPress community. 

Close to 100 New and Exciting Features Released

Of course, we have been excited about each of the milestones above. However, we know that we should never stop at any of our current laurels. 

Based on our user base’s constant feedback, we have consistently added new features.  In the last 3 years since the launch of Astra, we have released over 200+ updates in the form of fixes, enhancements, and new features. Here are just a few:

• 270+ Starter templates.
• Custom Layouts.
• Deeper integrations with WooCommerce.
• Enhanced integrations with LearnDash, LifterLMS, Easy Digital Downloads, etc.
• AMP support.

There are many more, but these significant updates brought in a lot of compliments from users like you.

Astra is fantastic and is our agency’s default theme. We went all-Astra in 2019 and it’s been a great decision. It’s stable. It’s powerful but fast (light). It has worked fine with every plugin we’ve tried so far.

I waste so much time fixing stupid problems on other bloated themes that come from old clients etc. Astra has been the cure for all that nonsense and unreliability.

Foxtopia on WordPress.org

On the heels of achieving 400,000 installs, we launched one of our most significant and the most awaited updates — Astra 2.0. 

This update not only changed the interface and made it more developer-friendly,  but also made sure the website development time was considerably reduced.

The Astra team keeps innovating, listening to their customers, and adding value. Imagine the hours and money spent simply to make their popular product easier to use and more effective. They took an already great product, and redesigned the interface and my workflow a.k.a. my most precious asset.Time… in mind. No wonder they keep growing by leaps and bounds!

Angelo Downunder on WordPress.org

250+ Starter Templates and Growing

Starter Templates have always been a favorite feature for our customers, and it has been brought up over and over again in our customer interactions. These requests and positive feedback kept our design team on the hunt for more ideas. 

We wanted to ensure that we covered several niches or use cases, and we have built a more extensive library of starter templates.

To make website building faster — we spent more time researching, planning, and designing each template that covered everything necessary for any particular niche.

The plugin was further enhanced in Starter Templates 2.0 — a better interface, the ability to import website and page templates, etc. 

Our users and customers loved that the starter templates were completely theme-independent. Also, they loved the Starter Templates came with a lot more features — favoriting a template, free images from Pixabay, etc.

In-Depth Courses From Industry Experts

Having worked as an agency ourselves we knew the importance of adapting and adjusting your work style to match the ongoing industry trends and ever-changing client needs. This is where we thought of launching an academy — SkillJet, a library of unique and useful online courses built to help agencies and freelancers like you flourish.

We worked closely with industry experts to create the courses of SkillJet. The content of these courses will help web design businesses like you get more clients, deliver better projects, and maintain long term relationships with clients and peers.

Don’t Take Our Word for It. Our Customers Will Tell You More!

To date, we have earned over 4000+ 5-star reviews on WordPress.org.

Also, we have received over 300+ reviews on Trustpilot. 

We are always pumped to read these reviews.

And we are grateful for the love and support we’ve received from each one of you.

Of course, it sounds like I am tooting our own horns a lot. Of course, it’s our blog, and I am a bit biased ?

Behind each 5-star review is an actual customer or an individual whose business has been transformed using Astra. Based on our customers’ raving feedback, here’s where Astra has helped their web design businesses.

Web development is made easier with Astra!

Astra was loved for the simplicity and control it offered so website builders could go up and beyond their needs without the extra bloat.

For me, the most baffling thing about most WordPress templates is that they have too many “features” which I don’t want. That makes it so hard to use. Astra Pro is basic. Whew. You can do whatever you want, adding plug-ins as needed. This puts YOU in control. Thank you!

Shosh1 on WordPress.org

I tried a lot of premade themes and most of them were so locked down it required days of coding to try and get what I wanted. Astra has needed very limited code tweaking because the options I needed to change were unlocked to change. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good foundation to build their desired site upon.

Vanessow on WordPress.org

Astra along with other freebies has been a combination of cost-effective and free solutions that make things happen!

We’ve always wanted to offer reasonable and usable solutions that reduce their web development time and make things easier. This is exactly what users experienced and wrote to us to reviews.

My theme requirements were pretty simple, I just needed something lightweight that allowed me to delete theme content and build with a virtually blank canvass using Elementor. So I went for Astra as it was lightweight and I could pick a header style that would suit me, since that cannot be changed with free versions.

The creators of Astra have a plugin that allows header creation using Elementor.

Astra + Elementor + Header, Footer & Blocks = Brilliant and Free!

Actionator on WordPress.org

Love the versatility of the Astra theme. The site building process is simplified and even the free version offers much versatility with its element options and attractive templates. You can also find Astra dedicated plugins. Support is second to none, stepping up quickly to help you get your site running. Feeling really good about my choice.

Tiger Lily on WordPress.org

Beginners to experts, everyone loves Astra!

Astra was made to be simple and yet advanced so it can serve both beginners and experts together. In these 3 years, we came across people who just moved to WordPress so they could begin with Astra and also experts who picked Astra after 10 and 15 years of experience in WordPress. They both loved it! ?

When I decided to start my own business I thought it would be particularly hard for me to create a site because I don’t have a tech background but a very solid career in media as a chief editor — so my visual standards are very high. I was mesmerized by how accurate the Astra theme reflected all my current needs! It’s bright, it’s intuitively manageable, it has a good set of templates. My friends from the media world say that my site looks very professional and inviting. Literarily, I can’t think of a better theme for my project. Would be happy to see more from Brainstorm Force!

Olia Potyagaeva on TrustPilot

I’m a graphic designer with WordPress and CSS knowledge – but no PHP or coding skills. I use Astra to design my clients’ websites, it’s a wonderful theme, easy to use, highly customizable, and works wonderfully with Elementor and with Woocommerce. Plus, their support is amazing!!

Elenasmouz on WordPress.org

Pre-made Starter Templates are loved for the ease of use and the time they save!

Starter Templates were built to assist Astra users with ready website templates to make things easier. They did! But, these templates then became a major attraction that brought in more users who later confirmed that they are helpful.

I wanted a theme that offered demo content importing, worked smoothly with WordPress editor and Elementor, plus a theme with a home page designed specifically for booking appointments. From my search results, an Astra template offered what I wanted. The theme works well with plugins, and is easily tailored to fit any responsive situation. 

Haserb on WordPress.org

The customization possibilities of the Astra theme are very nice. It is fast and the Starter Template Kit is saving me a lot of time especially eCommerce sites. If you hesitate now you do not have to. This is the way!

Michal Gizdak on Trustpilot

Astra is a secure, stable, faster, and reliable foundation for WordPress websites.

Built with solid and optimized code, Astra is made with every feature that a website builders looks for. People find it easy to use a theme with simple options that gives complete control while making a website.

I’ve used many themes, plugins and many big names in my career. But the Astra theme is different. It’s fast, flexible, easy to use and packed with a lot of features that many themes don’t have. Worth every penny. Great experience with the Brainstorm Force team so far!

Solayman Toaufik

Over the past 10 years, I’ve used a ton of themes to build websites for myself and for clients. Astra is one of the best out there. It’s versatile and has a lot of options that make building sites much easier than most. It saves me and my team time which is huge when you are paid by the project. The bonus is that they have great support as well so if I make a mistake I know I can count on them to help me fix it quickly. I’ve been beyond satisfied with the theme and recommend at least giving it a chance to see if it can improve your workflow.

Rory Carruthers

1 Million is Just a Milestone in Our Journey…

Today, when Astra is powering more than 1 million WordPress websites, of course, we are excited and celebrating. But, we are not going to rest on our laurels. 

In the spirit of never-ending and continuous improvements, we pledge to continue this fantastic journey. We strive to keep adding more value to the WordPress community. 

And, once again, thank you to each one of you. ??

Subscribe to this blog to keep up with our journey to the next million installs :). 

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