Intro Generatepress Favicon

Within the previous ten decades, I have used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I had been utilizing MyThemeShop, that was fairly good. However, I had to do a lot of customization to make it do and work the way I wanted it to. A few weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is by far the finest WordPress theme I’ve found in 10 years. I was dismissed and am moving all of my sites to GeneratePress. I will go into exactly why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review under. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as several other lightweight and heavier multicolored themes. Generatepress Favicon

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I have actually seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of things on there is not that great, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, that was a mistake. The motif now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy matches, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So clearly Tom is doing some thing right here.

I Really set up 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 developer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should work. And I will go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the features. I will be covering the premium version of the theme, since it’s worth . In fact, Tom, if you read this and are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

Super lightweight and fast. 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 devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a fan of this customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.

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

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

Translation ready.

Font wonderful built-in.

Tons of hooks and filters which make it good for programmers.

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

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the subject has existed long enough that what I Googled during the setup process was found inside a couple of seconds in their own forum.

Going Deep Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time to the fun part! I test a new theme right from the box without any customizations to just see how quickly the base is. This tells me a lot of what I can expect by the time that I add everything to it. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress motif 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 situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every record packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the number of files is not as important. But the dimensions is! Have a peek 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

This is a developer that cares about functionality! And I’ve Seen exactly the same during all the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file contained. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 arriving around the corner, we 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 anything you are not using to ensure they don’t load on your website. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built, I felt right at home for this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

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

Website

Shades

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is I no more have to use a young child theme. This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this exact moment rather than shed a single customization. The hooks add-on definitely can help make it possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Favicon

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On every Page/post that you have a lot of alternatives. You can alter the sidebar design and the footer widgets.

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

The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these choices are enabled from the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. But let me show you few which actually 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 developer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super simple way to add responsive columns into any page or article. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid thickness

Insert custom classes

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

This is An example below:

You May Want to Also catch his amazing WP Show Posts plugin too. View my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a particular”featured” category. You might also get it show last modified/updated posts, recent posts, 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 version of GeneratePress allows you to perform all sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a webpage builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I am in reality utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.

Speed Tests

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

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop theme was pretty fast, but I spent a great deal of time customizing it. In reality, I have gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all of my customizations. My advice now 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 don’t have a kid motif. All the customizations were made using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have working on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he can create a copy of woorkup for the new GeneratePress blog library. I am pleased to allow you to know that you can now install my woorkup motif in your GeneratePress site with just a single click! It is called the Marketer motif. Get started using a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over my personal site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimal site, since I don’t use it for much. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to replicate the entire look 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was even 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 business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum website, as we simply use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast. Generatepress Favicon

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 view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page burden 2x!

I can not express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my websites to it (which includes some EDD e-commerce websites ). Once I have my 9 sites all running in GP with no child themes, my life is going to be a breeze! The developer has restored my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.

And The best thing isI finally have a billion more choices to choose from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that want to have the ability to personalize and control exactly how their site looks.

You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And because GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the website that you build will have a fantastic base to make it load quickly.

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

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

…you Want something that will immediately look perfect from the box.

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

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

So To create GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you will most likely need to go in and personalize matters. And while 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 Which Make It Unique

Here Are some of the specific characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is so common.

Plenty Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Functionality, another place where GeneratePress does well is its customization choices.

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

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you adequate options, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize nearly everything about your site.

For Example, if you go in the Layout region, you may 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, including sticky menus
Sidebar design — you can utilize one or two sidebars
Blog post design — like featured image size, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — just like the number of widgets to include

Similarly, That the Typography place lets you control the font to get every single element on your site, including buttons:

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

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you much more customization choices in the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you are a beginner. But once you realize the way the settings come together, you will have full control over how your website 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 theme is less than 30 kB, and it is 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 some badly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

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

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

First, I set up a vacant site utilizing a haphazard popular WordPress.org theme (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’s Not bad in any way! But GeneratePress can do better.

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

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

If You do the exact same test with different topics, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes in existence. Generatepress Favicon

Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

Beyond Giving you more style controls in the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other helpful features like:

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

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

That Way, you do not need to slow down your site for a quality that you’re never going to use.

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

In The past, you needed to build GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which left the motif difficult for casual users to install.

Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a fresh Website Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any among the 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.

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

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

With Most topics, every post and page will use the very same settings for the most part. You may have some custom formats or templates — however you don’t have very much control past that.

GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a new Design meta name box for each and every post and page:

You Can utilize this meta box to:

Change how many sidebars your site uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
Choose how many footer widgets to use
Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, post featured picture, post title, or footer
Produce a special”container” to your own page builder

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

By Disabling certain components, you are in a position to produce the correct baseline for your own page builder design, which makes it easy to create custom content as needed. Generatepress Favicon

GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress motif is available for free at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you’re seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you nearly as many configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that gives you use on unlimited websites . You will also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to keep on receiving support and updates after the first year (you can, obviously, keep using GeneratePress following the initial year without beating — you won’t receive any more updates).

When You consider that the normal premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a fantastic value.

Wrap-up

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

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

But If you are ready 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 site that fits your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It is one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics you will find. So if you’re looking for the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great decision.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no problem making your website load in under one second. Generatepress Favicon