Intro Theme WordPress Best Seller
Over the past 10 decades, I have used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, which was fairly excellent. However, I had to perform a lot of customization to allow it to perform and work how I needed it to. A couple weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is undoubtedly the finest WordPress theme I’ve discovered in a decade . I was dismissed and am now moving all my websites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter 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 heavier multicolored themes. Theme WordPress Best Seller
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Evaluation
GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I have really seen it for years in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, so I tend to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there is not that great, or not supported for long. However, in this circumstance, that was a mistake. The theme now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ active matches, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So clearly Tom is doing some thing right here.
I Actually 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’ll go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the features. I will be covering the superior edition of the subject, because it’s worth very penny. Actually, Tom, if you ever read this and are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.
Characteristics
Super lightweight and quick. 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 great across all devices.
Schema built-in, for better results in SERPs.
Impressive integration with 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 support back to IE8.
Additionally, it works great with the popular fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you would like to dive into even more customizations, these are a terrific combo. I’ve also read that people using Beaver Builder have experienced success.
Translation ready.
Font wonderful built-in.
Tons of filters and hooks that make it good for programmers.
Excellent active service from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation is also unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their website, the subject has been around long enough that what I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds from their forum.
Diving Into GeneratePress
Now it’s Time for the fun part! I always test a new theme right from the box with no customizations to see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I can expect by the time I add everything for this. Running the stock GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms load time. I was very impressed.
One Thing I was worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to produce a whole lot of big files, but that is not the case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every record packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of documents isn’t as important. But the dimensions 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 functionality! And I’ve Seen the same during all of the premium add-ons. They are as small as you can possibly 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 cornerwe can expect that to secure smaller also.
The premium add-ons Are installation in what I’d call a modular layout. It is possible to activate/deactivate whatever you are not using to guarantee they don’t load on your website. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script supervisor built-in, I felt at home with this. Everything should be designed this way.
If You are interested, I’m using the next 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 I no more need to use a young child motif . This makes my life so much easier. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this very moment and not lose one customization. The hooks add-on definitely helps make it possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Theme WordPress Best Seller
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On every Page/post that you have a lot of options. You can change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.
You Can quickly swap a page between the default to a full width page, as well as disable components.
The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these choices are enabled by the premium add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. But allow me to show you few which really come in handy.
Responsive Columns
Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also made by the same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super simple way to incorporate responsive columns to any page or article. Features include:
Desktop grid thickness
Tablet grid thickness
Mobile grid thickness
Add custom classes
Add custom inline designs
Equal height columns
This is An example below:
You might want to Also grab his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. See my featured posts 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 past modified/updated articles, recent posts, etc.. I am using the free version and it works terrific.
To Get started, 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 in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not only for blogs! I’m in fact utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Don’t hesitate to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks nothing like a site.
Speed Tests
For all those Of those that are regular readers, you likely didn’t even notice that I changed the whole motif that powers woorkup.com. It just took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme that I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison under.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My older MyThemeShop motif was pretty quickly, but I invested a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all of my customizations. My advice today is, just get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
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 child theme. All 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 are in luck. Tom asked if he could create a replica of woorkup to your brand new GeneratePress blog library. I am happy to let you know that you can now install my woorkup motif on your own GeneratePress site with just a click! It’s called the Marketer theme. Get started with a great blog layout instantly.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved over my private website, 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. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I had been Able to replicate the entire appearance 100% in GeneratePress in under one hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was even able to eliminate a couple plugins which weren’t needed because of GP.
forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved over our business site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum site, as we simply use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Theme WordPress Best Seller
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 one hour. And as you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a total of four plugins and it dropped my whole page weight 2x!
I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all of my sites for this (which includes several EDD e-commerce sites). Once I have my 9 sites all running in GP with no child topics, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the right way, can actually perform quicker.
And The best news is, I finally have a billion more choices to choose from than I did before.
What GeneratePress Is Good For…
GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users that want to have the ability to customize and control exactly how their site appears.
You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And because GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the website that you build will have a great foundation to make it load fast.
Because Of that, those who build WordPress websites for a living love GeneratePress. They will typically pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any kind of site.
However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Combination If…
…you Want something which will immediately appear perfect from the box.
For Example, if you realize you wish to create a style blog, you may be happier choosing a niche theme that is developed exclusively for trend bloggers.
While GeneratePress has gotten a great deal simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones when you initially install it.
So To create GeneratePress look how you want it to, you’ll most likely need to go in and personalize things. And while the substantial advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, some users, particularly casual users, do not like having to make those changes themselves.
GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique
Here Are a few of the specific features that clarify why GeneratePress is so common.
Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Beyond Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.
GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this can be convenient as you’ll be able to see all of the changes that you make in real time.
The Free version of GeneratePress provides you adequate possibilities, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize nearly all about your site.
For Example, if you go into the Layout region, you may configure detailed settings for your:
- Header — you can move your header round and change its own styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
- Sidebar design — you can use one or two sidebars
- Blog post design — like featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — just like the number of widgets to add
Likewise, That the Typography place enables you to control the font to get each and every element on your site, such as buttons:
And You also get a thorough area to control the color of every single element on your site.
All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you much more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other themes. This amount of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you are a newcomer. But as soon as you understand how the preferences come together, you will have complete control over how your site appears.
Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times
Around All of its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The whole theme is less than 30 kB, and it will be about as small 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 themes can even surpass 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also has no code dependencies, which will help you avoid the render obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.
Put That collectively, and you get a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you an idea, I ran a small test.
First, I set up an empty website using 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 moments
- Had a page size of 243.9 kB
- Had 15 requests
That’s Not bad at all! However, GeneratePress can do better.
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 better
- Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% quicker
- Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
- Had 9 asks, ~40% less
If You do the exact same test with other themes, you’ll continue to find that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Theme WordPress Best Seller
Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach
Beyond Giving you more style controls in the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other useful features like:
- Elements — a exceptional feature which allows you create custom hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
- Page Header — allows you create a unique page header on a per-page basis.
- Sections — this is kind of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create different”sections” onto a webpage, each with their own layout and column settings.
To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you could pick and choose exactly which features you would like to activate.
That Way, you don’t need to slow your site down for a feature that you’re never going to use.
Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Site
In The past, 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, however, the developer added a new Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any among those 25+ pre-built demo sites.
You Can import them directly from the 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 Detailed Control Over Every Piece Of Content
With Most themes, every page and post will use the very same configurations for the most part. You may have some custom formats or templates — but you do not have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a new Design meta name box for every single post and page:
You Can use this meta box to:
- Change how many 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, like your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, article title, or footer
- Produce a special”container” for your page builder
Where These controls would be the most helpful is if you’re using a WordPress site builder.
By Disabling certain elements, you are in a position to produce the correct baseline for your own page builder layout, making it effortless to create custom articles as needed. Theme WordPress Best Seller
GeneratePress Replies: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Heart GeneratePress theme is available for free at WordPress.org.
That said, If you are serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you need to buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you nearly as numerous configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.
GeneratePress Premium can be still quite reasonably priced. It costs only $39.95, which provides you use on unlimited sites. You’ll also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and upgrades following the first year (you can, of course, continue using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you just won’t receive any more upgrades ).
When You consider the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a great price.
Summary
As I mentioned, I do not believe GeneratePress is for everyone.
If You want a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your needs for your niche from day one.
However, If you’re willing to spend some time altering preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you may even have the ability to locate a starter site that fulfills your needs to save some time.
Additionally, It is among those fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will locate. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great choice.
If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, you shouldn’t have any problem making your site load in under one minute. Theme WordPress Best Seller
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.