Introduction Best WordPress Themes Divi

Within the previous 10 decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I had been using MyThemeShop, which was fairly good. However, I had to perform a great deal of customization to allow it to do and operate how I needed it to. A few weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the best WordPress theme I’ve discovered in a decade . 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 in addition to many other lightweight and thicker multicolored themes. Best WordPress Themes Divi

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I have actually seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there isn’t that good, or not supported for long. However, in this circumstance, that was a mistake. The theme now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy matches, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly Tom is doing something right here.

I Really set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the programmer was thinking precisely how I was imagining a theme should get the job done. And I’ll go into that more below, but let us first look at a number of the features. I’m going to be covering the superior version of the theme, because it’s worth very penny. In fact, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.

Features

Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you don’t want running. This is one of the biggest reasons I adore GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks fantastic across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better results in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a lover of the 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.

It also works great with the popular fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you would like to dive into even more customizations, these are a great combo. I have also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have experienced success.

Translation ready.

Font wonderful built in.

A lot of hooks and filters that make it good for developers.

Great active support from the programmer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be unbelievable. Besides have great documentation on their site, the subject has existed long enough that what I wholeheartedly throughout the setup process was found within a couple of seconds from their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time to the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to just see how fast the base is. This tells me a great deal of what I could expect by the time that I add everything for this. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress motif on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms load time. I was very impressed.

One Thing I was worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to generate a lot of big files, but this isn’t the situation. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on making sure that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. With HTTP/2, the number of files is not as significant. But the dimensions is! Have 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

This is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I’ve Seen exactly the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file contained. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming round the cornerwe could anticipate that to get smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I’d call a modular layout. You can activate/deactivate whatever you are not using to ensure they do not load on your website. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built, I felt at home for this. Everything ought to be made this way.

If You are curious, I’m using the next add-ons on this site:

Blog

Shades

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is that 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 documents. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact moment and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make it possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Best WordPress Themes Divi

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a lot of options. You can alter the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

You Can easily swap a page involving the default to a complete width page, in addition to disable components.

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these options are permitted by the superior add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. However, allow me to show you few 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 the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super simple way to incorporate responsive columns to any page or post. Features include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Add custom classes

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

Here is An example under:

You might want to Also catch his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a particular”featured” category. You might also have it show last modified/updated articles, recent posts, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works great.

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium edition of GeneratePress allows you to do all kinds of things concerning design. Consider it like a page builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I am in reality utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. However, as you can see below, it looks like a site.

Speed Tests

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

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty fast, but I invested a lot of time customizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a great deal 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 motif I was able to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I do not have a kid theme. Each of the customizations were made with the wonderful GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he can create a replica of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I am happy to let you know that you can now install my woorkup motif on your own GeneratePress website with just a single click! It’s known as the Marketer motif. Get started using a fantastic blog design immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimal website, since I don’t use it for much. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to duplicate the entire appearance 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was even able to get rid of a couple plugins that weren’t needed due to GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum website, as we simply use it to our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty fast. Best WordPress Themes Divi

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 even faster! Amazing. I managed to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page weight 2x!

I can’t express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my websites for this (which includes some EDD e-commerce sites). Once I’ve got my 9 sites all running in GP with no child topics, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The developer has restored my faith in multi-purpose subjects , which when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best news isI finally have a thousand more options to pick from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users who wish to have the ability to customize and control exactly how their site appears.

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, people who build WordPress websites for a living love GeneratePress. They will normally pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any kind of site.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Fit If…

…you Need something which will immediately appear perfect out of the box.

For Example, if you realize you want to create a fashion blog, you might be happier picking out a niche theme that is developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

While GeneratePress has gotten a great deal simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you first install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll almost certainly will need to go in and personalize matters. And though the significant advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, especially casual users, do not like having to make those changes themselves.

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the particular features that clarify why GeneratePress is so popular.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Performance, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient as you’ll have the ability to see all of the changes that you create in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you adequate possibilities, but should you have GeneratePress Premium, you will be able to customize pretty much everything about your site.

For Example, if you go into the Design area, you can configure comprehensive settings to yourown:

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

Likewise, The Typography area enables you to control the font to get each and every element on your site, such as buttons:

And You also receive a thorough region to control the colour of each and every element on your website.

All In all, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization options from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This amount of detail might be a little overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But once you understand the way the preferences come together, you will have complete control over how your website looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Across All its attributes, GeneratePress always has a focus on excellent performance and clean code. The whole theme is less than 30 kB, and it is about as small 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 will help you avoid the render blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.

Place That together, and you obtain a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you an idea, I conducted a small test.

First, I set up a vacant site utilizing a random popular WordPress.org motif (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 at all! But GeneratePress can do better.

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

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

If You perform that same test with different themes, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Best WordPress Themes Divi

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

Past Giving you more design controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other useful features like:

Elements — a unique feature that allows you create customized hooks, page headers, or design templates.
Page Header — allows you create a unique page header onto a per-page basis.
Sections — this is kind of like lightweight page building. It permits you to create separate”sections” onto a page, each with their own design and column settings.

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

That Way, you do not have to slow your site down for a feature which you’re never going to use.

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

In The last, you needed to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the theme difficult for casual users to install.

Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a fresh Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any among those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.

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

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

With Most themes, every post and page will use the very same configurations for the most part. You may have some custom formats or templates — but you do not have very much control past that.

GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a new Layout meta name box for every single post and page:

You Can use this meta box to:

Change the number of 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 elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, post title, or footer
Create a special”container” for your page builder

Where These controls would be the most useful is if you’re using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain elements, you’re able to produce the correct baseline for your page builder design, which makes it easy to create custom articles as needed. Best WordPress Themes Divi

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

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

Nevertheless, If you are serious about using GeneratePress, I feel you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you almost as numerous settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also 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 upgrades following the first year (you can, of course, continue using GeneratePress following the first year without renewing — you just won’t get any more upgrades ).

When You consider the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great price.

Wrap-up

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

If You want a niche-specific theme, you can probably save time by buying a theme that satisfies your needs for your niche out of day one.

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

Additionally, It is one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics you will locate. So if you’re seeking the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great choice.

If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you shouldn’t have any difficulty making your site load in under one minute. Best WordPress Themes Divi