Introduction Best Themes Download
Over the previous ten years, I have used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I was using MyThemeShop, that was fairly excellent. But I had to perform a lot of customization to make it perform and work the way I needed it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the best WordPress theme I’ve found in 10 years. I was dismissed and am now moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I’ll go into precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review under. And if you are wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as many other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Best Themes Download
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Review
GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have actually seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there is not that great, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly Tom is doing some thing right here.
I Actually set up the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the superior version. I could tell right off the bat, the programmer was thinking precisely how I was imagining a theme should work. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at some of the qualities. I will be covering the superior edition of the subject, because it’s worth very penny. In fact, Tom, in the event that you read this and are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.
Features
Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you don’t need running. This is one of the biggest reasons I adore GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks great across all of the devices.
Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.
Impressive integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a lover of the customizer in the past, but Tom does it correctly.
Compatible with popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Fantastic browser support back to IE8.
It also works great with all the favorite fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you would like to dive into even more customizations, these are a terrific combo. I’ve also read that people using Beaver Builder have experienced success.
Translation ready.
Font wonderful built in.
Tons of hooks and filters which make it good for developers.
Great active support from the programmer. On average, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have great documentation on their site, the theme has been around long enough that what I wholeheartedly during the setup procedure was found inside a couple of seconds in their own forum.
Going Deep Into GeneratePress
Now it’s Time for the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to see how fast the base is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time I add everything for this. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was quite impressed.
One Thing I was worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to produce a whole lot of big files, but this is not the situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure every record packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of files is not as important. But the dimensions is! Take a peek at some of the center GeneratePress files below:
/generatepress/css/unsemantic-grid. min.css 2.9 KB
/generatepress/style. css 7.1 KB
/generatepress/css/mobile. min.css 1.6 KB
/generatepress/js/navigation. min.js 1.1 KB
/generatepress/js/dropdown. min.js 1.5 KB
That is a developer that cares about performance! And I have Seen exactly the same throughout all the premium add-ons. They’re as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file contained. And that is not even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming round the cornerwe could anticipate that to secure smaller also.
The premium add-ons Are installation in what I would call a modular layout. It is possible to activate/deactivate anything you aren’t using to guarantee they don’t load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built-in, I felt at home with this. Everything should be made this way.
If You’re curious, I am using the next add-ons on this site:
Website
Shades
Copyright
Hooks
Page Header
Spacing
Typography
No Child Theme Needed
One of The best features of GeneratePress is I no more need to use a Child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact minute rather than lose a single customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make it possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Best Themes Download
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On each Page/post you have a great deal of alternatives. You can change the sidebar design and the footer widgets.
You Can easily swap a page involving the default option to a complete width page, in addition to disable elements.
The WordPress customizer choices is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these options are enabled by the premium add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. However, allow me to show you couple which actually come in handy.
Responsive Columns
Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also made by the same developer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super easy way to incorporate responsive columns into any page or post. Characteristics include:
Desktop grid thickness
Tablet grid thickness
Mobile grid width
Insert custom courses
Insert custom inline designs
Equal height columns
This is An example under:
You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Show Posts plugin too. View my featured posts on the sidebar of this website? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a specific”featured” category. You might also have it show last modified/updated articles, recent articles, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works terrific.
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.
Sections Add-on
The Segments add-in in the premium version of GeneratePress lets you do all sorts of things concerning design. Think of it like a webpage builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I am in reality using GeneratePress for our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks like a blog.
Speed Tests
For those Of you that are regular readers, you likely didn’t even notice I changed the whole motif that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme that I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison below.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I invested a great deal of time customizing it. In fact, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to print all of my customizations. My advice now is, just get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
With the New GeneratePress theme I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I don’t have a child theme. Each of the customizations were made with the wonderful GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).
Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he can create a replica of woorkup for the new GeneratePress site library. I am pleased to let you know that you can now install my woorkup theme on your GeneratePress website with only a single click! It is called the Marketer motif. Get started using a fantastic blog layout immediately.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved over my private website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimal website, as I don’t use it for much. As you can see it loaded pretty quickly.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to replicate the whole appearance 100% in GeneratePress in under an hour. And as you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a couple plugins which weren’t needed because of GP.
forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimal website, as we just use it for our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Best Themes Download
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to again move everything over and get it looking just how I wanted it in under one hour. And as you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I managed to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page weight 2x!
I can’t express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my sites to it (which includes several EDD e-commerce websites ). Once I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP with no child themes, my life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the correct way, can actually perform faster.
And The best news is, I now have a billion more options to pick from than I did before.
What GeneratePress Is Good For…
GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that want to have the ability to customize and control precisely how their site looks.
You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the website that you build will have a great base to make it load fast.
Because Of that, people who build WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will normally pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any type of website.
But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…
…you Need something that will immediately appear perfect out of the box.
For Example, if you know you want to create a style blog, you might be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.
While GeneratePress is becoming a lot easier to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones if you initially install it.
So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you will most likely will need to go in and personalize matters. And while the substantial advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly casual users, do not like having to make those changes .
GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique
Here Are a few of the specific features that clarify why GeneratePress is so popular.
Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Past Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.
GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient because you’ll have the ability to see all the changes that you create in real time.
The Free version of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, you will have the ability to customize nearly everything about your site.
For Example, if you go in the Design region, you can configure comprehensive settings for yourown:
- Header — you can move your header round and change its own styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
- Sidebar layout — you can use a Couple of sidebars
- Blog post layout — like featured image dimensions, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — like how many widgets to include
Likewise, That the Typography area lets you control the font for every single element on your site, including buttons:
And You also receive a detailed area to control the color of every single element on your website.
All In all, GeneratePress will provide you much more customization options in the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This amount of detail might be a little overwhelming if you are a beginner. But once you understand how the settings come together, you’ll have complete control over how your website appears.
Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times
Across All of its features, GeneratePress consistently has a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The entire motif is less than 30 kB, which will be about as little as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And a few badly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which will help you avoid the render obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.
Put That collectively, and you obtain a superfast-loading theme. How quickly? To give you an idea, I ran a small test.
First, I set up an empty website utilizing a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing its performance with Pingdom, it:
- Had a performance tier of 77
- Loaded in 1.05 seconds
- Had a page size of 243.9 kB
- Had 15 asks
That is Not bad in any way! However, GeneratePress can do better.
Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the same test site without altering anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress failed:
- Had a performance tier of 87, 10 points greater
- Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% quicker
- Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
- Had 9 asks, ~40% fewer
If You perform the exact same test with other topics, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Best Themes Download
Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach
Beyond Giving you more design controls in the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other helpful features like:
- Elements — a unique feature which lets you create customized hooks, page headers, or design templates.
- Page Header — lets you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
- Sections — that is kind of like lightweight page construction. It permits you to create separate”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column settings.
To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular interface where you can pick and choose exactly which characteristics you would like to activate.
That Way, you do not need to slow down your site for a quality that you’re never going to use.
Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Site
In The last, you had to construct GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the theme difficult for casual users to install.
Earlier In 2018, however, the developer added a fresh Website Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any one of the 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .
You Can import them directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Yes this Website still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click a couple buttons to import a demo site.
Page-Level Settings Give You Detailed Control Over Each Bit Of Content
With Most themes, each post and page will use the very same settings for the most part. You may have some custom templates or formats — however you don’t have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a brand new Design meta box for every single post and page:
You Can utilize this meta box to:
- Change how many sidebars your site uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as altering the sidebar from right to left)
- Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
- Disable certain components, such as your header, navigation menu, post featured picture, post title, or footer
- Create a special”container” to your page builder
Where These controls would be the most helpful is if you’re using a WordPress site builder.
By Disabling certain elements, you’re in a position to produce the proper baseline for your page builder design, making it effortless to create custom articles as needed. Best Themes Download
GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Heart GeneratePress motif can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.
That said, If you are seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so flexible. The free version does not give you almost as numerous settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also miss out on the premade Site Library.
GeneratePress Premium can be still quite reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that gives you use on infinite sites. You will also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to keep on receiving support and upgrades following the initial year (you can, of course, continue using GeneratePress following the first year without beating — you just won’t receive any more updates).
When You consider the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a fantastic price.
Summary
As I mentioned, I don’t believe GeneratePress is for everyone.
If You desire a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by purchasing a theme that satisfies your needs for your niche from day one.
However, If you’re willing to spend time altering settings, GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you might even be able to find a starter website that fulfills your needs to save some time.
Additionally, It’s among the fastest-loading WordPress topics you will find. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great decision.
If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you should have no difficulty making your site load in under one minute. Best Themes Download
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.