Introduction Custom WordPress Theme Generator

Over the past ten decades, I’ve used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I had been utilizing MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. But I still had to perform a great deal of customization to make it do 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 is undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I have found in a decade . I had been blown away and am moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I will go into precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as several other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Custom WordPress Theme Generator

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve actually seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of stuff on there isn’t that great, or not encouraged for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The theme currently has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ active installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly Tom is doing something 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 developer was thinking exactly 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 features. I’m going to be covering the superior version of the subject, because it’s worth . In fact, Tom, if you read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

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

Responsive, looks fantastic across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a lover of the customizer previously, but Tom does it correctly.

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

It also 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 have also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built-in.

Tons of filters and hooks which make it good for programmers.

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 subject has been around long enough that what I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found inside a couple of seconds in their forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

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

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to produce a lot of big files, but that isn’t the situation. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on making sure that every record packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of documents isn’t as important. But the dimensions is! Have a look at a few 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’ve Seen the same during all the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file contained. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming around the corner, we can anticipate that to get smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I would call a modular layout. You can activate/deactivate anything you are not using to ensure they do not load on your website. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin which has a script supervisor built, I felt 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

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is that I no longer need to use a young child theme. This makes my life much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress theme this exact minute and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make this possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Custom WordPress Theme Generator

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

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

You Can easily swap a page between the default to a full width page, as well as disable elements.

The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, a lot of these choices are permitted from the superior add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. But let me show you couple which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is your free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be created by precisely the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super simple way to incorporate responsive columns into any page or post. Features include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Insert custom courses

Add custom inline styles

Equal height columns

This is An example below:

You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. View my featured articles on the sidebar of this website? That’s using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a specific”featured” category. You can also get it show last modified/updated posts, 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 version of GeneratePress lets you perform all sorts of things concerning design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I’m in fact utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks nothing like a site.

Speed Tests

For all those Of you that are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice that I changed the entire theme that forces woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif which 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 spent a lot of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to publish all my customizations. My advice today is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress motif I managed 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 awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he could create a copy of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress site library. I am happy to allow you to know that you can now put in my woorkup motif on your own GeneratePress site with just a single click! It’s called the Marketer motif. Get started with a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum site, as I don’t use it to get much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to duplicate the whole look 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a couple plugins which weren’t needed because of GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over our organization website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum site, as we just use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Custom WordPress Theme Generator

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to again move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under one hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page burden 2x!

I can not express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all my websites to it (which comprises several EDD e-commerce websites ). After I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP without any child topics, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The developer has restored my faith in multi-purpose themes, which when done the right way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best thing isI now have a thousand more choices to pick from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

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

You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the site that you build will have a fantastic foundation to make it load fast.

Since Of that, people who assemble WordPress websites for a living love GeneratePress. They will normally pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any type of website.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…

…you Want something that will instantly appear perfect out of the box.

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

Even though GeneratePress has gotten a great deal simpler to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones when you initially install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll most likely need to go in and customize matters. And while the substantial advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, especially casual users, do not like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the specific characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed common.

Plenty Of Customization Options In 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 as you will have the ability to see all the changes that you make in real time.

The Free version of GeneratePress provides you decent options, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you will be able to customize nearly all about your site.

For Example, if you go into the Layout region, you may configure detailed settings for yourown:

Header — you can move your header around and change its styling
Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
Sidebar design — you can use one or two sidebars
Blog post design — like featured image dimensions, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — like how many widgets to add

Likewise, The Typography place lets you control the font for each and every element on your site, such as buttons:

And You also receive a detailed 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 compared to most other topics. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you understand how the preferences come together, you’ll have full control over how your site appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Across All its features, GeneratePress always has a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The entire theme is less than 30 kB, which is about as little as you are ever going to find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And a few badly coded themes can even exceed 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which will help you avoid the leave obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

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

First, I put up a vacant site utilizing a haphazard 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 triggered GeneratePress on the exact same test site without altering anything else. Here is how GeneratePress did:

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

If You do the exact same test with different themes, you’ll continue to find that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Custom WordPress Theme Generator

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

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

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

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular port where you could pick and choose what characteristics you would like to trigger.

That Way, you don’t 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 past, you had to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the theme difficult for casual users to install.

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

You Can import them directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Yes this Website 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 Each Piece Of Content

With Most topics, each post and page will use the very same settings for the most part. You may have some custom templates or formats — however you do not have very much control beyond that.

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

You Can utilize this meta box to:

Change the number of sidebars your website 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, 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 site builder.

By Disabling certain elements, you’re able to create the correct baseline for your page builder layout, making it effortless to create custom content as needed. Custom WordPress Theme Generator

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress motif is available at no cost at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you’re seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so flexible. The free version does not give you nearly as numerous configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium can be still fairly reasonably priced. It costs only $39.95, and that 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, continue using GeneratePress following the first year without beating — you won’t receive any more upgrades ).

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

Conclusion

As I said, I do not believe GeneratePress is for everybody.

If You desire a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your requirements for your market out of day one.

However, If you are willing to spend time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any sort of WordPress website. Or, you may even be able to locate a starter website that fits your needs to save some time.

Additionally, It is one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will find. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great choice.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you shouldn’t have any difficulty making your website load in under one minute. Custom WordPress Theme Generator