Intro Fastly WordPress Plugin

Over the previous 10 decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, which was pretty good. However, I had to do a lot of customization to make it perform and work the way I needed it to. A couple 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 10 years. I had been blown away and am moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter exactly why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Fastly WordPress Plugin

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have actually seen it for many years in 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 great deal of stuff on there isn’t that great, or not supported for long. However, in this case, that was a mistake. The motif currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing some thing right here.

I Actually installed the free version of the theme 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 imagining a theme should get the job done. And I’ll go into that more below, but let’s first look at some of the features. I’m going to be covering the premium edition of the theme, because it’s worth . Actually, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and so 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 only one of the biggest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

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

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

It also works great with all the favorite fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you want to dive into even more customizations, these are a great combo. I have also read that people using Beaver Builder have had success.

Resumes prepared.

Font awesome built in.

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

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

The Documentation can be unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I Googled during the setup process was found within a couple of seconds from their forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time to the fun part! I always test a brand new theme right from the box with no customizations to just see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time that I add everything for this. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress theme 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 layout was going to generate a lot of big files, but that isn’t the case. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on ensuring that every record loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the number of files is not as important. But the dimensions is! Take a look at a few of the core 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 developer that cares about functionality! And I’ve Seen exactly the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They’re literally as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file contained. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 arriving around the corner, we could expect that to get smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular design. It is possible to activate/deactivate whatever you aren’t using to guarantee they do not load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script supervisor built-in, I felt at home for this. Everything should be designed this way.

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

Blog

Colors

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is I no more have to use a Child theme. This makes my life much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this very moment and not shed a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make it possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Fastly WordPress Plugin

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On every Page/post that you have a great deal of options. You can change the sidebar design and the footer widgets.

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

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

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Insert custom classes

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

Here is An example under:

You might want to Also catch his amazing WP Display Posts plugin too. View my featured articles on the sidebar of this website? That’s using the WP Display 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 articles, 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 sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a webpage builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I am in fact utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. But as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

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

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I invested a lot of time scrutinizing it. In fact, I’ve 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

Together with the New GeneratePress motif I managed to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a kid motif. All the customizations were created using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can create a copy of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I am pleased to let you know that you can now put in my woorkup motif on your GeneratePress site with just a click! It is called the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog design immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

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

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to duplicate the whole appearance 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can see 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

I also Moved over our organization site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimal website, as we simply use it for our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty fast. Fastly WordPress Plugin

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to again move everything over and get it looking exactly how I wanted it in under one hour. And as 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’m moving over all my sites to it (which includes some EDD e-commerce websites ). Once I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP with no child themes, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has restored my faith in multi-purpose themes, which when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best thing is, I finally have a billion more choices to choose from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that want to have the ability to customize and control precisely how their site appears.

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

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

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Fit If…

…you Need something that will immediately appear perfect from the box.

For Example, if you know you wish to produce a style blog, you may be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

While GeneratePress is becoming a lot simpler to use, thanks to its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones when you first install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll almost certainly 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, don’t like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

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

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Performance, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization options.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this can be convenient as you’ll be able to see all of the changes that you make in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you decent possibilities, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize pretty much everything about your website.

For Example, if you go in the Design region, you may configure comprehensive settings to your:

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

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

And You also get a detailed region to control the colour of each and every element on your site.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you much more customization options from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This amount of detail may be a bit overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But once you understand how the preferences come together, you will have full control over how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All of its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on exceptional performance and tidy code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, and it will be 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 topics can even surpass 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which helps you avoid the render obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.

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

First, I set up an empty site utilizing a haphazard popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After testing its functionality with Pingdom, it:

• Had a performance tier of 77
• Loaded in 1.05 moments
• Had a page size of 243.9 kB
• Had 15 asks

That is Not bad in any way! However, GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on the same test website without changing anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress failed:

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

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

Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

Beyond Giving you more style 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 — that is kind of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create separate”sections” onto a page, each with their own layout and column preferences.

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you can pick and choose exactly which characteristics you want to trigger.

That Way, you don’t need to slow your site down for a feature that 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 websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which left the theme difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, however, the developer added a new Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .

You Can import them directly 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, each post and page will use the very same settings for the most part. You might have some custom formats or templates — however you don’t 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 website uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose how many footer widgets to use
• Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, post title, or footer
• Create a special”container” to your page builder

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

By Disabling certain elements, you are in a position to create the correct baseline for your page builder design, which makes it effortless to create custom articles as needed. Fastly WordPress Plugin

GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme is available at no cost at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you’re seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you almost as many configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium can be still quite reasonably priced. It costs only $39.95, and that provides you use on unlimited websites . You will also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to continue receiving support and upgrades after the first year (you can, obviously, keep using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you won’t receive any more upgrades ).

When You believe that the normal premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great price.

Conclusion

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

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

However, If you are willing to spend some time altering settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you might even be able to find a starter site that fits your needs to save some time.

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

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no difficulty making your website load in under one second. Fastly WordPress Plugin

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.