Intro Most Popular Themes WordPress

Within the previous ten decades, I’ve used a lot of different WordPress themes and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I had been using MyThemeShop, which was fairly excellent. However, I had to do a lot of customization to make it do and work how I wanted it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the best WordPress theme I’ve found in 10 years. I was blown away and am moving all my sites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter exactly why in my in-depth 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 thicker multi-purpose themes. Most Popular Themes WordPress

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Evaluation

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme made by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve really seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you know that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to dismiss everything from the repository. Typically because a great deal of things on there is not that great, or not encouraged for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The theme currently has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So clearly Tom is doing some thing right here.

I Really installed 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 programmer was thinking exactly how I was imagining a theme should work. And I’ll go into that more below, but let’s first look at some of the features. I’m going to be covering the premium edition of the subject, since it’s worth . In fact, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and are seeing 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 one of the biggest reasons I adore GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for greater results in SERPs.

Dramatic integration with the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a lover of this customizer in the past, but Tom does it correctly.

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

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

Translation ready.

Font awesome built-in.

A lot of hooks and filters which make it good for developers.

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

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have great documentation on their site, the theme has existed long enough that everything I wholeheartedly throughout 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 brand new theme right from the box with no customizations to see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time I add everything for this. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress theme 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 design was going to produce a lot of big files, but this is not the case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure every file packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of documents is not as important. However, the size is! Have a look at some 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 the same during each of the premium add-ons. They’re as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the largest file included. And that isn’t even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving around the corner, we could expect this to get smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I’d call a modular layout. It is possible to activate/deactivate anything you aren’t using to ensure they do not load on your website. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built, I felt at home with this. Everything should be made this way.

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

Blog

Shades

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best features of GeneratePress is that I no more need to use a young child motif . This makes my life much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this very moment and not lose a single customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make it possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP anywhere throughout your WordPress website. Most Popular Themes WordPress

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each 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, in addition to disable elements.

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

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Insert custom classes

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

Here is An example under:

You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Show Posts plugin too. View my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That’s using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a specific”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 Segments add-in in the premium version of GeneratePress allows you to do all sorts of things in terms of design. Think of it like a webpage 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. Don’t hesitate to look it over. However, as you can see below, it looks like a blog.

Speed Tests

For all those Of those that are regular readers, you likely didn’t 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’s a comparison under.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop motif was pretty fast, but I invested a lot of time customizing it. In reality, I have gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to publish all of my customizations. My advice today is, simply 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 remember, I don’t have a kid motif. Each of the customizations were made with the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he could make a copy of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress blog library. I am pleased to let you know that now you can put in my woorkup theme in your GeneratePress site with just a click! It’s called the Marketer motif. Get started with a great blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my private site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It is a pretty 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 was Able to replicate the whole appearance 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a few plugins which weren’t needed due to GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over our organization website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum website, as we just use it for our LLC. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly. Most Popular Themes WordPress

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to again move everything over and get it looking just how I needed it in under an hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page burden 2x!

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

And The best news is, I finally have a billion more choices to choose from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that wish to be able to personalize and control exactly how their site looks.

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

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

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Fit If…

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

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

Even though GeneratePress is becoming a lot easier to use, as a result of its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you first install it.

So To create GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you will most likely will need to go in and personalize things. And while the substantial advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, especially casual users, don’t like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the specific characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is indeed common.

Plenty Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Performance, another place where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.

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

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you adequate possibilities, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you will have the ability to customize pretty much all about your website.

For Example, if you go in the Layout area, you can configure comprehensive settings to your:

• Header — you can move your header around and change its 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 — like featured image 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 site, including buttons:

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

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you a lot more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other topics. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But as soon as you understand the way the settings come together, you will have full control over how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

Across All of its features, GeneratePress consistently has a focus on excellent performance and tidy 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 topics are still 200+ kB. And some badly coded topics can even surpass 1 MB!

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

Place That collectively, and you get a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you an idea, I conducted a small test.

First, I set up a vacant site utilizing a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing its functionality with Pingdom, it:

• Had a performance tier of 77
• Loaded in 1.05 moments
• Had a page size of 243.9 kB
• Had 15 requests

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

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

• Had a performance grade of 87, 10 points greater
• Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% quicker
• Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
• Had 9 requests, ~40% fewer

If You perform the exact same test with different topics, you’ll continue to find that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Most Popular Themes WordPress

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

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

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

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular interface where you could pick and choose exactly which characteristics you want to activate.

That Way, you don’t need 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 past, you needed to build GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas no matter what, which left the theme difficult for casual users to install.

Earlier In 2018, however, the developer added a fresh Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any among those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from your WordPress dashboard.

Yes this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click a couple 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 settings for the most part. You might have some custom formats or templates — but you do not have very much control past that.

GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a brand new Layout meta 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 (such as altering the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose how many footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain components, like your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, article title, or footer
• Produce a special”container” to your page builder

Where These controls are the most helpful is if you are using a WordPress site builder.

By Disabling certain components, you’re able to produce the proper baseline for your own page builder design, which makes it easy to create custom articles as needed. Most Popular Themes WordPress

GeneratePress Replies: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Heart GeneratePress theme is available at no cost at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you’re seriously interested in 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 nearly as many settings in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose 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 infinite sites. You will also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and upgrades following the initial year (you can, obviously, keep using GeneratePress following the initial year without beating — you just won’t receive any more updates).

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

Summary

As I mentioned, I don’t believe 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 market out of day one.

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

Additionally, It is among the fastest-loading WordPress themes that you will locate. Therefore, 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 problem making your site load in under one minute. Most Popular Themes WordPress

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.