Hello vs Astra under Elementor: the theme tax measured

Hello vs Astra under Elementor: the theme tax measured

Same Elementor 3.21 site, swapped only the base theme to isolate overhead. Tested on 10 identical pages.

Results:
— Hello Elementor: 41KB theme CSS, clean baseline
— Astra free: +96KB CSS, +52KB JS even with modules off
— Page weight gap averaged 138KB per page

On a 50-page site that's real cumulative crawl and transfer cost.

Pros:
— Hello keeps Elementor's footprint honest
— Fewer style conflicts to debug

Cons:
— Hello ships almost no defaults; you style everything
— Astra's starter templates speed early prototyping

Best for: Elementor builds where you want minimal theme overhead and don't need a feature-rich parent theme.