Introduction Demo Content For Generatepress
Within the past 10 decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I had been using MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. However, I had to perform a great deal of customization to allow it to do and operate the way I wanted it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s undoubtedly the best WordPress theme I’ve discovered in a decade . I had been blown away and am moving all my sites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter exactly why in my in-depth GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to many other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Demo Content For Generatepress
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Review
GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve really seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of things on there isn’t that good, or not encouraged for long. However, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The theme now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.
I Really set up the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the superior version. I could tell right off the bat, the programmer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should get the job done. And I’ll go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the superior edition of the theme, since it’s worth very penny. Actually, Tom, if you read this and are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.
Characteristics
Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you do not need running. This is one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.
Schema built-in, for greater results in SERPs.
Dramatic integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of this customizer in the past, 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 terrific combo. I’ve also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.
Translation ready.
Font wonderful built-in.
Tons of hooks and filters which make it great for programmers.
Excellent active support from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have great documentation on their website, the subject has existed long enough that what I wholeheartedly during the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds from their forum.
Diving Into GeneratePress
Now it is Time to the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box without any customizations to just see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I can expect by the time that I add everything to it. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress motif on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms load time. I was very impressed.
One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to generate a whole lot of big files, but that isn’t the situation. You may tell that Tom actually worked hard on ensuring that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of documents is not as important. However, the size is! Take a look at some of the core 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
That is a developer that cares about functionality! And I’ve Seen exactly the same during all the premium add-ons. They’re as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file contained. And that is not even his. With Font Awesome 5 arriving around the cornerwe could expect this to secure smaller also.
The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you are not using to ensure they do not load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built, I felt at home with this. Everything should be made this way.
If You’re interested, I am using the next add-ons on this site:
Blog
Colors
Copyright
Hooks
Page Header
Spacing
Typography
No Child Theme Needed
One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is that I no longer need to use a Child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally update my GeneratePress motif this very minute rather than shed one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make this possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Demo Content For Generatepress
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On every Page/post you have a lot of alternatives. You can alter the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.
You Can easily swap a page involving the default to a complete width page, as well as disable components.
The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, a lot of these options are permitted by the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here daily. But let me show you couple which really come in handy.
Responsive Columns
Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is your free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be created by the 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 width
Insert custom courses
Add custom inline designs
Equal height columns
Here is An example under:
You might want to Also grab his amazing WP Show Posts plugin also. View my featured articles 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 can also get it show last modified/updated posts, 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 lets you do all sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I’m in reality utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.
Speed Tests
For those Of those that are regular readers, you likely didn’t even notice that I changed the entire motif that forces woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme which I had spent a year customizing. Here’s a comparison under.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My older MyThemeShop theme was pretty fast, but I spent a lot of time scrutinizing it. In fact, I have gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to publish all my customizations. My advice now is, just get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
With the New GeneratePress theme I managed to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a child theme. All the customizations were created using the wonderful 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 replica of woorkup to your new GeneratePress site library. I’m pleased to allow you to know that now you can install my woorkup motif on your GeneratePress site with only a click! It’s known as the Marketer motif. Get started with a great blog design instantly.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved within my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum website, as I do not use it for much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty fast.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to replicate the entire appearance 100% in GeneratePress in under an hour. And as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a couple plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.
forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved over our business site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimum site, as we just use it for our LLC. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Demo Content For Generatepress
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I wanted it in under one hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page weight 2x!
I can not express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I am moving over all my websites to it (which includes several EDD e-commerce websites ). Once I have my 9 websites all running in GP without any child topics, my entire life will be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the correct way, can actually perform faster.
And The best news isI now have a billion more choices to choose from than I did earlier.
What GeneratePress Is Great For…
GeneratePress Is the ideal option for performance-focused users that want to have the ability to customize and control exactly how their site looks.
You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And because GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the site that you build will have a great base to make it load fast.
Since Of that, those who build WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will typically pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any kind of site.
But 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 may be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.
While GeneratePress has gotten a lot simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones if you initially install it.
So To make GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll almost certainly will 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 some of the specific features that explain why GeneratePress is indeed common.
Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Past Performance, another place where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.
GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient because you will be able to see all the changes that you make in real time.
The Free version of GeneratePress gives you adequate possibilities, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize pretty much all about your site.
For Example, if you go in the Design region, you can configure comprehensive settings for your:
- Header — you can move your header round and alter its own styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
- Sidebar design — you can use one or two sidebars
- Blog post layout — such as featured picture size, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — just like how many widgets to include
Similarly, The Typography place enables you to control the font to get each and every element on your website, including buttons:
And You also receive a thorough area to control the color of each and every element on your site.
All In all, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization options in the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This level of detail may be a bit overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But as soon as you realize how the preferences come together, you will have full control on how your site appears.
Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times
Across All its attributes, GeneratePress always includes a focus on exceptional performance and tidy code. The entire motif is less than 30 kB, which will be about as little as you are ever going to find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And some badly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which helps you avoid the render blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.
Put That together, and you obtain a superfast-loading theme. How fast? To give you an idea, I ran a small test.
First, I set up an empty website utilizing a haphazard popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After analyzing its functionality with Pingdom, it:
- Had a performance grade of 77
- Loaded in 1.05 seconds
- Had a page size of 243.9 kB
- Had 15 asks
That is Not bad at all! However, GeneratePress can perform.
Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the exact same test site without changing anything else. Here is how GeneratePress did:
- 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 requests, ~40% fewer
If You perform the exact same test with different themes, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Demo Content For Generatepress
Other Useful 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 helpful features like:
- Elements — a unique feature that allows you create customized hooks, page headers, or design templates.
- Page Header — lets you create a exceptional page header on a per-page basis.
- Sections — this is sort of like lightweight page building. It lets you create different”sections” onto a webpage, each with their own layout and column preferences.
To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular interface where you could pick and choose exactly which characteristics you would like to trigger.
That Way, you do not have to slow down your site for a quality which you’ll never use.
Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Website
In The past, you had to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas no matter what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to install.
Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a fresh Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any one of the 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .
You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.
Yes — this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a couple buttons to import a demo site.
Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Each Bit Of Content
With Most themes, every page and post will use the same settings for the most part. You might have some custom formats or templates — however you do not have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a new Design meta name box for every single 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 use
- Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, post featured image, article title, or footer
- Create a special”container” to your own page builder
Where These controls are the most useful is if you’re using a WordPress site builder.
By Disabling certain components, you are in a position to produce the proper baseline for your own page builder layout, which makes it easy to create custom content as needed. Demo Content For Generatepress
GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Core GeneratePress motif can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.
Nevertheless, If you’re serious about using GeneratePress, I believe you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you nearly as numerous configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.
GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs just $39.95, and that provides you use on infinite websites . You will also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and upgrades after the first year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress after the first year without renewing — you won’t get any more upgrades ).
When You consider the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a fantastic value.
Conclusion
As I said, I don’t believe GeneratePress is for everybody.
If You desire a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by purchasing a theme that satisfies your needs for your niche out of day one.
But If you’re ready to spend time changing settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any sort of WordPress site. Or, you may even have the ability to find a starter website that fulfills your needs to save some time.
Additionally, It’s one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will locate. So if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great decision.
If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, so you should have no problem making your website load in under one minute. Demo Content For Generatepress
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.