Intro Best WordPress Theme Detector

Within the previous 10 years, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I was using MyThemeShop, which was pretty excellent. However, I still had to perform a great deal of customization to allow it to do and work how I wanted it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the finest WordPress theme I have found in 10 years. I had been blown away and am moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I’ve tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi as well as many other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Best WordPress Theme Detector

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have really seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there isn’t that good, or not encouraged for long. Nonetheless, in this case, that was a mistake. The theme currently has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing some thing right here.

I Really installed the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should work. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at some of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the premium version of the subject, since it’s worth . In fact, Tom, if you read this and so are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you don’t want running. This is only one of the greatest reasons I adore GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a fan of this customizer previously, but Tom does it right.

Compatible with popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Great browser support back to IE8.

Additionally, it works great with all the popular fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you want to dive into even more customizations, these really are a great combo. I’ve also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built in.

Tons of filters and hooks which make it great for developers.

Great active service from the developer. On average, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup process was found within a few seconds in their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time for the fun part! I test a brand new theme right out of the box without any customizations to just see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I could expect by the time I add everything for this. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress motif on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was very impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to produce a lot of big files, but that is not the case. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure every file packed in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of documents isn’t as important. But the dimensions is! Have a look at some of the center GeneratePress files under:

/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

This is a programmer that cares about performance! And I’ve Seen exactly the same during each of the premium add-ons. They’re as small as you can possibly get them. In reality, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file included. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming around the cornerwe could anticipate that to get smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I’d call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you aren’t using to guarantee they do not load on your site. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin which has a script supervisor built, I felt right at home with this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

If You’re interested, I am using the next add-ons on this site:

Blog

Shades

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is I no longer have to use a young child motif . This makes my life much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact minute and not shed a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make this possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress website. Best WordPress Theme Detector

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On every Page/post that you have a lot of alternatives. You are able to alter the sidebar design and the footer widgets.

You Can quickly swap a page between the default option to a full width page, in addition to disable components.

The WordPress customizer choices is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these options are permitted from the superior add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. However, let me show you couple which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also made by precisely the same developer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super easy way to add responsive columns to any page or article. Features include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid width

Insert custom courses

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You May Want to Also grab his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. View my featured articles on the sidebar of this site? That’s using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a specific”featured” category. You can also have it show past modified/updated articles, recent posts, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works great.

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium edition of GeneratePress lets you perform all sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a webpage builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not just for blogs! I am in fact utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is running Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. But as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.

Speed Tests

For those Of those who are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice that I changed the whole motif that powers woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme that I had spent a year customizing. Here’s a comparison under.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I invested a lot of time customizing it. In fact, I have gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to publish all of my customizations. My advice now is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

With the New GeneratePress theme I was able to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I do not have a kid theme. All the customizations were created using the wonderful GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can make a replica of woorkup to your new GeneratePress blog library. I am happy to let you know that now you can install my woorkup theme in your own GeneratePress website with just a single click! It’s called the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimum website, as I don’t use it to get much. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to duplicate the entire look 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a few plugins which weren’t needed because of GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum site, as we simply use it to our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Best WordPress Theme Detector

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking exactly how I wanted it in under one hour. And as you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page burden 2x!

I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my websites for this (which comprises some EDD e-commerce sites). After I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP without any child themes, my entire life will be a breeze! The programmer has restored my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the right way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best news is, I now have a thousand more options to choose from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users who want to be able to personalize and control exactly how their site looks.

You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And because GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the site that you build will have a great foundation to make it load fast.

Because Of that, those who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will normally pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any kind of site.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

…you Want something which will immediately look perfect from the box.

For Example, if you know you want to create a fashion blog, you might be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

While GeneratePress has gotten a great deal easier to use, thanks to its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you initially install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll almost certainly need to go in and personalize things. And though the substantial benefit 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 indeed common.

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Performance, another place where GeneratePress does well is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient as you will have the ability to see all the changes that you create in real time.

The Free version of GeneratePress provides you adequate possibilities, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you will have the ability to customize pretty much everything about your website.

For Example, if you go in the Design area, you may configure detailed settings to yourown:

• Header — you can move your header round and alter its own styling
• Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
• Sidebar design — you can utilize a Couple of sidebars
• Blog post design — such as featured picture size, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — like the number of widgets to include

Likewise, The Typography place enables you to control the font to get every single element on your website, such as buttons:

And You also receive a detailed area to control the color of each and every element on your website.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization options from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other topics. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But as soon as you understand how the settings come together, you will have complete control on how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

Around All its attributes, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, and it will be about as little as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And a few poorly coded themes can even surpass 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which helps you avoid the render blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

Place That collectively, and you get a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you an idea, I conducted a little test.

First, I set up a vacant website using a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After analyzing 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 requests

That’s Not bad at all! But GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on exactly the same test website without altering anything else. Here is how GeneratePress failed:

• Had a performance tier of 87, 10 points better
• Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% quicker
• Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
• Had 9 requests, ~40% less

If You do the exact same test with different topics, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics in life. Best WordPress Theme Detector

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

Past Giving you more style controls in the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other helpful features like:

• Elements — a exceptional feature that lets you create custom hooks, page headers, or design templates.
• Page Header — allows you create a exceptional page header onto a per-page basis.
• Sections — this is kind of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create different”sections” on a webpage, each with their own layout and column settings.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you could select and choose exactly which characteristics you want to activate.

That Way, you don’t have to slow down your site for a feature that you’re never going to use.

Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Website

In The past, you needed to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas no matter what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, though, the developer added a new Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any among those 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .

You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.

Yes this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click a couple buttons to import a presentation site.

Page-Level Settings Give You Comprehensive Control Over Every Piece Of Content

With Most topics, each page and post will use the same configurations for the most part. You may have some custom formats or templates — but you don’t have very much control past that.

GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a brand new Design meta name box for each and every page and post:

You Can use this meta box to:

• Change how many sidebars your site uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain components, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, article title, or footer
• Produce a special”container” to your own page builder

Where These controls are the most helpful is if you’re using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain components, you’re able to create the proper baseline for your page builder layout, making it effortless to create custom content as needed. Best WordPress Theme Detector

GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme can be obtained at no cost at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you are serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you nearly as many settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium can be still fairly reasonably priced. It costs only $39.95, which gives you use on unlimited websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress following the first year without beating — you just won’t get any more upgrades ).

When You consider that the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a fantastic price.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, I do not think GeneratePress is for everyone.

If You desire a niche-specific theme, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your needs for your niche from day one.

But If you’re ready to spend some time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any sort of WordPress website. Or, you might even be able to find a starter site that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It’s among the fastest-loading WordPress topics you will find. Therefore, if you’re seeking the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a good choice.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you shouldn’t have any difficulty making your website load in under one second. Best WordPress Theme Detector

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.