Introduction Generatepress Post Grid

Over the past ten decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I was using MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. However, I had to do a great deal of customization to make it do and operate 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 best WordPress theme I’ve discovered in a decade . I had been dismissed and am now moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter exactly why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi as well as several other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Generatepress Post Grid

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 really seen it for years in the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to dismiss everything in the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there is not that great, or not encouraged for long. Nonetheless, 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 Actually installed 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 exactly 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’m going to be covering the premium version of the subject, since it’s worth very penny. Actually, Tom, if you ever read this and so are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.

Characteristics

Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you don’t need running. This is one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better results in SERPs.

Impressive integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of this customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.

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

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

Resumes prepared.

Font awesome built in.

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

Great active service from the programmer. On average, 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 during the setup procedure was found inside a few seconds in their forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time for the fun part! I always test a new theme right out of the box without any customizations to just see how quickly the base is. This tells me a great deal of what I could 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 load time. I was very impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to produce a lot of big files, but that is not the situation. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure every record packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of files isn’t as significant. But the size is! Have a peek 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 programmer that cares about performance! And I’ve Seen exactly the same during each of the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is most likely the biggest file contained. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming around the cornerwe could anticipate this to get smaller too.

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 guarantee 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 ought to be designed this way.

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

Website

Shades

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is that I no longer have to use a Child motif . This makes my life much easier. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I can literally update my GeneratePress motif this very moment and not shed a single customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make it possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Post Grid

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post you have a lot of options. You can change the sidebar design and the footer widgets.

You Can quickly swap a page between the default to a complete width page, in addition to disable components.

The WordPress customizer choices is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these options are enabled by the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here daily. But let me 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 is also made by precisely the same programmer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super simple way to add responsive columns to any page or article. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid thickness

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid width

Insert custom courses

Add custom inline designs

Equal height columns

This is An example under:

You might want to Also grab his amazing WP Show Posts plugin also. View my featured articles on the sidebar of this website? That’s using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a particular”featured” category. You might also get it show past modified/updated posts, recent posts, 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 version of GeneratePress lets you perform all sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I am in fact using GeneratePress for our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. However, as you can see below, it looks like a site.

Speed Tests

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

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

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

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress theme I managed to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a kid theme. All the customizations were made with the wonderful 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 replica of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress blog library. I’m happy to allow you to know that you can now install my woorkup motif on your own GeneratePress website with only a click! It’s known as the Marketer theme. Get started with a great blog design immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimal site, as I do not use it to get much. As you can see it loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to duplicate the entire look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a few plugins which 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’s a fairly basic minimum site, as we just use it for our LLC. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Generatepress Post Grid

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

I can not express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my sites for this (which comprises several EDD e-commerce sites). After I’ve got my 9 sites all running in GP with no child themes, my life will be a breeze! The programmer has restored my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the correct way, can actually perform faster.

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

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal option for performance-focused users who wish to have the ability to customize and control exactly how their site appears.

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

Because Of that, those 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.

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Combination If…

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

For Example, if you realize you want to produce a style blog, you might be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

Even though GeneratePress has gotten a great deal simpler 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 would like it to, you will almost certainly need to go in and customize things. And while the significant benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some 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 clarify why GeneratePress is so common.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Performance, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

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

The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you adequate possibilities, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize pretty much everything about your site.

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

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

Similarly, That the Typography place lets you control the font for each and every element on your website, including buttons:

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

All In all, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you are a newcomer. But as soon as you realize how the preferences come together, you will have full control on how your site appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Across All of its attributes, GeneratePress always includes a focus on exceptional performance and tidy code. The whole theme is less than 30 kB, which is about as small as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And some badly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which helps you avoid the leave blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

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 random popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After analyzing 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 asks

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

Next, I triggered GeneratePress on exactly the exact same test website without changing anything else. Here is how GeneratePress failed:

• Had a performance tier 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 themes, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is one of those fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Generatepress Post Grid

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

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

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

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you can pick and choose exactly which features you would like to activate.

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

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

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

Earlier In 2018, though, the programmer added a fresh Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users which allows you easily import any one of the 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .

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 Detailed Control Over Each Bit Of Content

With Most themes, every page and post 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 brand new Layout meta box for every single post and page:

You Can utilize this meta box to:

• Change how many sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (such as altering the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain components, such as your header, navigation menu, article featured image, 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 elements, you’re able to create the correct baseline for your own page builder design, which makes it effortless to create custom articles as needed. Generatepress Post Grid

GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

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

Nevertheless, If you are serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so flexible. The free version doesn’t give you almost as many settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still fairly affordable. It costs just $39.95, and that provides you use on unlimited sites. You’ll also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you won’t receive any more upgrades ).

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

Conclusion

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

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

However, If you’re ready to spend some time changing settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any sort of WordPress website. Or, you might even have the ability to locate a starter website that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics you will locate. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a good choice.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you should have no difficulty making your website load in under one minute. Generatepress Post Grid

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.