Background Fully Free WordPress Themes

Over the previous 10 years, I have used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. But I still had to perform a great deal of customization to allow it to do and work how I needed it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I have discovered in a decade . I had been blown away and am now moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi as well as many other lightweight and heavier multicolored themes. Fully Free WordPress Themes

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 in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to dismiss everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of things on there is not that good, or not encouraged for long. However, in this case, that was a mistake. The theme now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.

I Really installed 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 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 qualities. I will be covering the superior edition of the subject, because it’s worth very penny. Actually, Tom, if you read this and so are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

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

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for greater results in SERPs.

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

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

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

Translation ready.

Font awesome built in.

A lot of filters and hooks which make it great for programmers.

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

The Documentation is also unbelievable. Besides have great documentation on their site, the subject has existed long enough that everything I wholeheartedly throughout the setup process was found within a few seconds from their own forum.

Going Deep 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 fast the base 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 loading 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 case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every record loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of files is not as important. But the dimensions is! Have a look at a few 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 have Seen the same during all the premium add-ons. They are as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is probably the largest file included. And that isn’t even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving round the corner, we could expect that to get smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate anything you aren’t using to guarantee they don’t load on your site. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built, I felt at home with this. Everything should be made this way.

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

Blog

Shades

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is I no more have to use a Child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I can literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact moment rather than lose one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make this possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress website. Fully Free WordPress Themes

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 between the default option to a full width page, as well as disable components.

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these options are permitted from the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. However, allow me to show you couple which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

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

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid width

Insert Customized classes

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You May Want to Also grab his amazing WP Show Posts plugin also. See 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 have it show last modified/updated posts, recent articles, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works terrific.

To Begin, 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. Think of it like a webpage builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I’m in fact utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

For all those Of those that are regular readers, you probably did not even notice I changed the entire theme that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme which I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison under.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I spent a lot of time customizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice today is, just get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress motif I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I don’t have a kid theme. Each of the customizations were created with the wonderful 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 could create a replica of woorkup for the new GeneratePress site library. I’m happy to let you know that now you can put in my woorkup theme in your GeneratePress site with only a single click! It’s known as the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog design immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum site, since I do not use it to get much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to replicate the entire look 100% in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a few plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

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

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking just 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 total page burden 2x!

I can not express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all my websites for this (which comprises several EDD e-commerce websites ). Once I have my 9 websites all running in GP without any child themes, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , which when done the correct way, can actually perform faster.

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 want to be able to customize and control precisely 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 foundation to make it load quickly.

Because Of that, those who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will normally pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any type of site.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Combination If…

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

For Example, if you know you wish to produce a style blog, you may be happier choosing a niche theme that is developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

Even though GeneratePress is becoming a great deal easier to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones when you initially install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you’ll most likely will need to go in and personalize matters. And while the substantial benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly 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 From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

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

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

The Free version of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize pretty much all about your website.

For Example, if you go in the Design region, you can configure detailed settings for your:

• Header — you can move your header round 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 — like featured picture size, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — like how many widgets to include

Likewise, That the Typography area enables you to control the font to get every single element on your website, including buttons:

And You also get a thorough region to control the color of every single element on your website.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization choices in the WordPress Customizer compared to most other topics. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you are a beginner. But as soon as you understand the way the settings come together, you will have complete control over how your site looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Across All of its attributes, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The entire motif is less than 30 kB, which is about as little as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And some poorly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which helps you avoid the render obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.

Put That together, and you obtain a superfast-loading theme. How quickly? To give you a sense, I ran a little test.

First, I put up a vacant site 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 moments
• Had a page size of 243.9 kB
• Had 15 requests

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

Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the exact same test site without altering anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress did:

• 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% less

If You do the exact same test with other themes, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress topics in life. Fully Free WordPress Themes

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 layout templates.
• Page Header — allows you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
• Sections — this is kind of like lightweight page construction. It permits you to create different”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column settings.

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular port where you could select and choose what characteristics you would like to activate.

That Way, you do not have to slow your site down for a quality that you’ll never use.

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

In The last, you needed to construct GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas no matter what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a fresh Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them directly from the WordPress dashboard.

Yes — this Website still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click a couple buttons to import a presentation site.

Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Every 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 — but you don’t have very much control past that.

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

You Can utilize this meta box to:

• Change how many sidebars your site uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as changing the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, article featured image, article title, or footer
• Create a special”container” for your page builder

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

By Disabling certain elements, you are able to produce the correct baseline for your page builder layout, which makes it easy to create custom content as needed. Fully Free WordPress Themes

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 need to buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you almost as numerous settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs just $39.95, and that gives you use on infinite websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and updates after the initial year (you can, obviously, continue using GeneratePress after the first year without renewing — you just won’t receive any more upgrades ).

When You believe the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a great value.

Wrap-up

As I said, I don’t think GeneratePress is for everyone.

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

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

Additionally, It’s among those fastest-loading WordPress themes you will find. Therefore, if you’re seeking the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a good decision.

If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no problem making your site load in under one second. Fully Free WordPress Themes

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.