Introduction Generatepress Maintenance

Within the previous ten years, I have used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I had been using MyThemeShop, which was pretty excellent. But I had to perform a great deal of customization to make it do and operate the way I needed it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the best WordPress theme I’ve discovered in 10 years. I was blown away and am moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will go into precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review under. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi in addition to many other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Maintenance

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have actually seen it for years in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, so I have a tendency to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of stuff on there isn’t that good, or not supported for long. However, in this case, this was a mistake. The motif currently has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ active installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly Tom is doing something right here.

I Really set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should work. And I’ll go into that more below, but let’s first look at some of the qualities. I will be covering the premium edition of the theme, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, in the event that you read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

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

Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for better results in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a lover 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.

Additionally, it works great with all the popular 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 experienced success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built in.

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

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

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have good documentation on their website, the theme has been around long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup process was found inside a few seconds in their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time for the fun part! I test a new theme right from the box without any 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 stock 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 design was going to generate a whole lot of big files, but that isn’t the situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure every record packed in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of files isn’t as significant. However, the dimensions is! Have a peek 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

That is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen the same during each of the premium add-ons. They are as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is probably the largest file contained. And that isn’t even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving round the cornerwe could expect that to secure smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular layout. It is possible to activate/deactivate anything you are not using to ensure they do not load on your site. As the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built-in, I felt at home for this. Everything should be designed this way.

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

Website

Shades

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is that I no more need to use a Child motif . This makes my life much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this very moment and not shed one customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make it possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Generatepress Maintenance

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a lot of alternatives. You can change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

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

The WordPress customizer options is really where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these options are permitted from the premium add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would 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 made by the exact same developer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super easy way to incorporate responsive columns into any page or post. Features include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Add Customized classes

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. View my featured articles on the sidebar of this website? That is using the WP Display Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a specific”featured” category. You can also get it show last modified/updated articles, recent articles, etc.. I am 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 edition of GeneratePress lets you perform all kinds of things concerning 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) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

For those Of you that are regular readers, you probably did not 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 theme which I had spent annually customizing. Here’s a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop theme was already pretty fast, but I spent a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to publish all of my customizations. My advice now is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

With the New GeneratePress theme 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 made using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he could make a copy of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress blog library. I am pleased to allow you to know that now you can install my woorkup theme on your own GeneratePress website with only a click! It’s known as the Marketer theme. Get started using a fantastic blog design immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved within my private website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum website, since 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 an hour. And as you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was even 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 business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimal website, as we just use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Generatepress Maintenance

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under an hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I managed 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 sites to it (which comprises some EDD e-commerce websites ). After I’ve got my 9 sites all running in GP without any child topics, my entire life will 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 news isI now have a billion more choices to pick from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect alternative for performance-focused users who want to be able to personalize and control precisely how their site looks.

You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the site that you build will have a fantastic foundation to make it load quickly.

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

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

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

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

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

So To make GeneratePress look how you want 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 Which Make It Unique

Here Are some of the particular characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is so popular.

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.

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

The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you decent possibilities, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize nearly all about your site.

For Example, if you go into the Design region, you may configure comprehensive settings to yourown:

• Header — you can move your header round and change its own styling
• Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
• Sidebar layout — you can use a Couple of sidebars
• Blog post design — such as featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — just like how many widgets to include

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

And You also receive a thorough area to control the color of each and every element on your site.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This amount of detail may be a little overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But once you understand the way the preferences come together, you’ll have complete control on how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Across All of its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The entire 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 themes 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.

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

First, I set up a vacant website utilizing a haphazard popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After analyzing its performance 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! But GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on the exact same test site without altering anything else. Here is 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% less

If You perform the exact same test with different topics, you are going to continue to see that GeneratePress is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Generatepress Maintenance

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 lets you create customized hooks, page headers, or design templates.
• Page Header — allows you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
• Sections — that is kind of like lightweight page building. It lets you create separate”sections” on a page, each with their own layout and column preferences.

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

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

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

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

Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a fresh Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any one of those 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 a few buttons to import a demo site.

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

With Most topics, each page and post will use the same configurations for the most part. You might have some custom formats or templates — however you do not 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 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 the number of footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain elements, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, article title, or footer
• Create a special”container” to your page builder

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

By Disabling certain components, you are able to create the proper baseline for your own page builder layout, making it easy to create custom articles as needed. Generatepress Maintenance

GeneratePress Replies: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme can be obtained at no cost at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you are seriously interested in using GeneratePress, I feel you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so flexible. The free version does not give you almost as many settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you will also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite reasonably priced. It costs only $39.95, and that provides you use on unlimited 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, of course, continue using GeneratePress following the first year without renewing — you just won’t get any more upgrades ).

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

Wrap-up

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

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

But If you’re ready to spend some time altering settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any sort of WordPress site. Or, you may even have the ability to find a starter website that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

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

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you shouldn’t have any problem making your site load in under one minute. Generatepress Maintenance

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.