Introduction Generatepress Cookie Popup

Over the past ten years, I’ve used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, that was pretty excellent. However, I still had to do a lot of customization to make it perform and work the way I wanted it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I have discovered in a decade . I was dismissed and am now moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will go into precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to many other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Cookie Popup

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I’ve really seen it for years in the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to dismiss everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there isn’t that great, or not supported for long. However, in this circumstance, that was a mistake. The motif now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ active installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.

I Really set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes bought the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the programmer was thinking precisely how I was imagining a theme should work. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the superior version of the theme, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, in the event that you read this and so are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Characteristics

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 love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

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

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

Additionally, it works great with the favorite fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you would like to dive into even more customizations, these are a terrific combo. I’ve also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Resumes prepared.

Font awesome built in.

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

Great active support from the programmer. On average, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation is also unbelievable. Besides have great documentation on their website, the theme has existed long enough that what I wholeheartedly throughout the setup procedure was found inside a couple of seconds in their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time for the fun part! I always test a new theme right from the box with no customizations to just see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time I add everything to it. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was quite 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 is not the situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on ensuring every record loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. With HTTP/2, the number of documents is not as important. But the size is! Have a look at a few of the center 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 performance! And I’ve Seen exactly the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They are as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file contained. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming around the corner, we can expect this to secure smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I’d call a modular design. It is possible to activate/deactivate anything you are not using to ensure they don’t load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built-in, I felt at home for this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

If You’re interested, I’m using the next add-ons on this site:

Website

Colors

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 Child motif . This makes my life much easier. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I can literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact moment rather than shed one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make this possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Cookie Popup

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

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

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

The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these choices are permitted by the superior add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. However, allow me to show you few which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly recommend 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 simple way to incorporate responsive columns into any page or article. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Add Customized courses

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

This is An example below:

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

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium edition of GeneratePress lets you perform all sorts of things in terms of design. Think of it like a webpage builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I am in fact utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. But as you can see below, it looks like a site.

Speed Tests

For all those Of you who are regular readers, you likely didn’t even notice I changed the whole theme that powers woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif which I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop motif was already pretty fast, but I spent a lot of time customizing it. In fact, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice today is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress motif I was able to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I don’t have a child motif. Each of the customizations were created using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

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

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved within my private website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimal site, since I do not use it to get much. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to replicate the entire look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a few plugins which weren’t needed due to GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over our organization website, 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 loaded pretty quickly. Generatepress Cookie Popup

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to again move everything over and get it looking exactly how I needed it in under an hour. And since you can see it loads even 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 locating GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my websites for this (which comprises several EDD e-commerce websites ). Once I have my 9 sites 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 right way, can actually perform faster.

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

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users who wish to be able to customize and control precisely how their site looks.

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

Because Of that, people who build WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll typically pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any kind of website.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Fit If…

…you Want something which will immediately appear perfect from the box.

For Example, if you realize you want to produce a style blog, you may be happier picking out a niche theme that’s developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

While GeneratePress is becoming 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 make GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you’ll almost certainly need to go in and personalize matters. 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 themselves.

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

Here Are some of the particular characteristics that explain why GeneratePress is so common.

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

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

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient as you will be able to see all of the changes that you create in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize nearly all about your site.

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

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 picture size, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — just like the number of widgets to add

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

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

All In all, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This amount of detail might be a little overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you realize how the preferences come together, you’ll have complete control over how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All of its features, GeneratePress always includes a focus on exceptional performance and tidy code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, and it will be about as small as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And a few poorly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!

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

Put That collectively, and you get a superfast-loading theme. How fast? To give you a sense, I conducted a little test.

First, I set up an empty website utilizing a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing 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 requests

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

Next, I activated GeneratePress on the same test site without altering anything else. Here is 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 asks, ~40% fewer

If You do that same test with other topics, you’ll continue to find that GeneratePress is one of those fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Generatepress Cookie Popup

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

Beyond Giving you more design controls in the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other useful features such as:

Elements — a unique feature which lets you create custom hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
Page Header — lets you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
Sections — that is kind of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create separate”sections” on a webpage, each with their own layout and column settings.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you could pick and choose what characteristics you want to activate.

That Way, you don’t have to slow down your site for a feature which you’re never going to use.

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

In The past, you needed to construct GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas no matter what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to install.

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

You Can import them directly from your WordPress dashboard.

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

Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Every Piece Of Content

With Most themes, each post and page will use the same configurations for the most part. You might have some custom formats or templates — but 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 how many sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as changing the sidebar from right to left)
Choose how many footer widgets to use
Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, article title, or footer
Create a special”container” to your own page builder

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

By Disabling certain elements, you’re able to create the correct baseline for your own page builder layout, making it easy to create custom articles as needed. Generatepress Cookie Popup

GeneratePress Replies: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.

That said, If you are serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so flexible. The free version does not give you nearly as many settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still fairly reasonably priced. It costs only $39.95, which gives you use on infinite websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and upgrades after the initial year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress following the first year without renewing — you just won’t get any more upgrades ).

When You consider the typical premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a fantastic value.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, I do not think GeneratePress is for everybody.

If You want a niche-specific theme, you can probably save time by buying a theme that satisfies your needs for your market out of day one.

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

Additionally, It is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes you will locate. So if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great decision.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no difficulty making your site load in under one second. Generatepress Cookie Popup