Background Generatepress Theme Demo
Within the previous 10 years, I have used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I was using MyThemeShop, which was pretty good. However, I had to do a great deal of customization to make it do and operate the way I needed it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the finest WordPress theme I’ve discovered in 10 years. I was dismissed and am moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I’ll go into precisely why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review under. And if you are wondering, yes I’ve attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi as well as several other lightweight and heavier multicolored themes. Generatepress Theme Demo
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Evaluation
GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I have really seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a lot of stuff on there is not that good, or not supported for long. However, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The theme now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.
I Actually 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 exactly how I was envisioning a theme should get the job done. And I will go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the premium version of the theme, because it’s worth very penny. In fact, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.
Features
Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you do not need 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.
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 all popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Fantastic browser service back to IE8.
It also works great with the popular 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 individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.
Resumes prepared.
Font wonderful built in.
Tons of hooks and filters which make it good for programmers.
Excellent active support from the programmer. Normally, 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 process was found inside a few seconds from their own forum.
Diving Into GeneratePress
Now it is Time for the fun part! I always test a brand new theme right out of the box with no customizations to 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 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 produce a lot of big files, but this is not the situation. You may tell that Tom actually worked hard on making sure every file loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. With HTTP/2, the amount of documents isn’t as important. But the dimensions is! Take a peek at a few of the center 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 performance! And I have Seen exactly the same throughout all the premium add-ons. They are as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the largest file contained. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming around the corner, we can expect this to get smaller also.
The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular design. It is possible to activate/deactivate anything you aren’t using to guarantee they don’t load on your website. As the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built, I felt right at home for this. Everything ought to be made this way.
If You are interested, I’m using the following add-ons on this website:
Website
Colors
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 theme. This makes my life much easier. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact minute and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make this possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Generatepress Theme Demo
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On every Page/post that 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 option to a full width page, in addition to disable components.
The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, lots of these choices are enabled from the premium add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here daily. However, allow me to show you couple which actually come in handy.
Responsive Columns
Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also created by precisely the exact same developer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super easy way to incorporate responsive columns into any page or post. Features include:
Desktop grid thickness
Tablet grid width
Mobile grid width
Add Customized courses
Add custom inline styles
Equal height columns
Here is An example below:
You May Want to Also catch his amazing WP Display Posts plugin also. See my featured articles on the sidebar of this site? 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 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 lets you perform all kinds of things in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not just for blogs! I’m in fact utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks like a site.
Speed Tests
For those Of those who are regular readers, you probably did not even notice that I changed the whole theme that forces woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif which I had spent annually customizing. Here is a comparison under.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty fast, but I spent a great deal of time customizing it. In reality, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice now is, simply get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
With the New GeneratePress theme I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I don’t have a child theme. All the customizations were created with the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).
Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You are in luck. Tom asked if he can create a copy of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I am pleased to let you know that now you can install my woorkup motif on your GeneratePress website with just a click! It is known as the Marketer motif. Get started using a fantastic blog design immediately.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved within my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum website, as I don’t use it for much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty fast.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to replicate the whole appearance 100% in GeneratePress in under an hour. And as you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a couple 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 had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimal site, as we simply use it to our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty fast. Generatepress Theme Demo
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under one hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page weight 2x!
I can not express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my sites to it (which includes several EDD e-commerce websites ). After I have my 9 websites all running in GP with no child topics, my life is going to be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the right way, can actually perform faster.
And The best thing isI now have a thousand more choices to pick from than I did before.
What GeneratePress Is Great For…
GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that want to have the ability to personalize and control precisely how their site appears.
You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the site that you build will have a great foundation to make it load fast.
Since Of that, those who build WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They will typically pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any type of site.
However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…
…you Need something which will immediately appear perfect out of the box.
For Example, if you know you wish to create a style blog, you may be happier choosing a market theme that’s developed exclusively for trend bloggers.
While GeneratePress is becoming a great deal easier to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones if you first install it.
So To make GeneratePress look how you want it to, you will most likely need to go in and customize things. And while the substantial benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, especially casual users, do not like having to make those changes .
GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique
Here Are a few of the particular characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed common.
Plenty Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Past Functionality, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization options.
GeneratePress Uses 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 should you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize pretty much everything about your site.
For Example, if you go in the Design region, you may configure detailed settings to yourown:
- Header — you can move your header round and change its styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
- Sidebar design — you can utilize one or two sidebars
- Blog post layout — such as featured image dimensions, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — like how many widgets to include
Similarly, The Typography place lets you control the font to get each and every element on your site, such as buttons:
And You also receive a thorough area to control the colour of each and every element on your site.
All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization options from the WordPress Customizer than most other themes. This level of detail may be a little overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you understand the way the preferences come together, you’ll have complete control over how your site appears.
Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times
Across All its features, GeneratePress always includes a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The entire 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 themes can even surpass 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which helps you avoid the render blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.
Put That collectively, and you obtain a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you an idea, I ran a little test.
First, I put up an empty site using a haphazard popular WordPress.org motif (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 asks
That’s Not bad at all! However, GeneratePress can do better.
Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the same test site without changing anything else. Here’s how GeneratePress failed:
- Had a performance grade 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% less
If You do that same test with other topics, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress themes in existence. Generatepress Theme Demo
Other Useful 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 helpful features such as:
- Elements — a exceptional feature that allows you create customized hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
- Page Header — lets you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
- Sections — that is sort of like lightweight page building. It permits you to create separate”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column preferences.
To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you can select and choose what characteristics you want to trigger.
That Way, you do not need 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 build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas no matter what, which made the theme difficult for casual users to install.
Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a fresh Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that lets you easily import any one of the 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .
You Can import them directly from the WordPress dashboard.
Yes this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a few buttons to import a presentation site.
Page-Level Settings Give You Comprehensive Control Over Every Bit Of Content
With Most themes, every page and post will use the very same settings for the most part. You may have some custom templates or formats — however you do not have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a brand new Design meta name box for each and every page and post:
You Can use this meta box to:
- Change the number of 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 components, like your header, navigation menu, post featured picture, article title, or footer
- Produce a special”container” for your page builder
Where These controls are the most helpful is if you’re using a WordPress page builder.
By Disabling certain elements, you are able to produce the correct baseline for your own page builder layout, which makes it effortless to create custom articles as needed. Generatepress Theme Demo
GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Heart GeneratePress theme can be obtained at no cost at WordPress.org.
That said, If you’re seriously interested in utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you nearly as numerous settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose out on the premade Site Library.
GeneratePress Premium can be still fairly reasonably priced. It costs just $39.95, and that provides you use on infinite websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to keep on receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, of course, continue using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you won’t get any more updates).
When You believe the normal premium WordPress theme will usually cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great value.
Conclusion
As I said, I don’t think GeneratePress is for everyone.
If You desire a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your needs for your market from day one.
But If you are willing to spend some time altering settings, GeneratePress’ mode controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress site. Or, you may even be able to locate a starter site that fulfills your needs to save a little time.
Additionally, It is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will find. Therefore, if you’re seeking the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a good choice.
If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, so you should have no problem making your site load in under one second. Generatepress Theme Demo
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.