Introduction Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

Over the previous 10 decades, I have used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. But I had to do a great deal of customization to make it do and operate how I wanted 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 10 years. I had been blown away and am moving all of my sites to GeneratePress. I will go into precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review under. And if you are wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as many other lightweight and heavier multicolored themes. Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I’ve actually seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I am fairly 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 is not that good, or not encouraged for long. However, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly 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 developer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should get the job done. And I’ll go into that more below, but let us 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 are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.

Characteristics

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

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan 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 would like to dive into even more customizations, these really are a great combo. I have also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Resumes prepared.

Font wonderful built-in.

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

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

The Documentation is also unbelievable. Besides have great documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I wholeheartedly throughout the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds in 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 inventory 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 generate a whole lot of big files, but this is not the situation. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on ensuring that every file packed in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of files is not as significant. But the size is! Take a look 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

That is a programmer that cares about performance! And I have Seen exactly the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file contained. And that isn’t even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming round the cornerwe can expect this to secure 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 this perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built, I felt right at home with this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

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

Blog

Shades

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 exact moment and not lose a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make it possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a great deal of options. You are able to alter the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

You Can easily swap a page involving the default option to a complete width page, as well as disable components.

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these choices are enabled from the superior add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we would be here daily. But allow me to show you few which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also made by precisely the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super simple way to add responsive columns into any page or post. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid width

Add Customized classes

Add custom inline styles

Equal height columns

This is An example below:

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

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Segments add-in in the premium version of GeneratePress lets you do all sorts of things concerning design. Consider it like a webpage builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I’m in fact using GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But 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 whole theme that powers woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme which I had spent annually customizing. Here’s a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty fast, but I spent a lot of time customizing it. In fact, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to publish all my customizations. My advice today is, just 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 keep in mind, I do not have a child theme. All the customizations were made with the awesome 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 blog library. I am happy to allow you to know that now you can install my woorkup motif on your GeneratePress site with only a single click! It’s called the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved within my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum website, as I don’t use it for much. As you can see it loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to replicate the entire appearance 100 percent in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was even able to get rid of a couple plugins which weren’t needed due to GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over our organization site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum website, as we simply use it for our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty fast. Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

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

And The best news is, I now have a billion more options to pick from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that want to be able to customize and control exactly how their site appears.

You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the website 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’ll normally pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any kind of site.

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Fit If…

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

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

Even though GeneratePress has gotten a lot simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones when you initially install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll most likely need to go in and customize things. And though the significant benefit 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 specific characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is so common.

Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past 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 will have the ability to see all the changes that you make in real time.

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

For Example, if you go into the Layout area, you may configure comprehensive settings to your:

• Header — you can move your header around and alter 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 — such as featured image size, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — like the number of widgets to add

Similarly, The Typography area lets you control the font for each and every element on your website, such as buttons:

And You also get a thorough area to control the colour of every single element on your site.

All In all, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other topics. This level of detail may be a little overwhelming if you are a beginner. But as soon as you understand the way the settings come together, you will have complete control on how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All of its attributes, GeneratePress always has a focus on excellent performance and clean code. The entire motif is less than 30 kB, which will be about as small as you are ever going to find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And some poorly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which will help 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 conducted a little test.

First, I set up a vacant 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 seconds
• Had a page size of 243.9 kB
• Had 15 requests

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

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

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

If You do that same test with different themes, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress themes in existence. Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

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

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

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you can pick and choose what features you want to activate.

That Way, you do not need to slow your site down for a feature which you’ll never use.

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

In The past, you had to construct GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the theme difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, though, the developer added a new Website Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any one of 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 a few buttons to import a demo site.

Page-Level Settings Give You Detailed Control Over Each Piece Of Content

With Most topics, 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 giving 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 how many footer widgets to use
• Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, post title, or footer
• Create a special”container” to your page builder

Where These controls would be the most helpful is if you are using a WordPress site builder.

By Disabling certain elements, you’re able to create the proper baseline for your own page builder design, making it effortless to create custom content as needed. Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme is available for free at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you’re seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so flexible. The free version does not give you almost as numerous configurations from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also miss 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 will also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, obviously, continue using GeneratePress following the first year without beating — you just won’t receive any more updates).

When You believe that the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a great value.

Summary

As I mentioned, I don’t believe GeneratePress is for everybody.

If You want a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that satisfies your requirements for your niche from day one.

But If you are willing to spend time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any sort of WordPress site. Or, you might even be able to locate a starter site that fits your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It’s among the fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will find. So if you’re looking for the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great choice.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you shouldn’t have any difficulty making your website load in under one second. Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.