Background Top 10 Best WordPress Themes

Over the previous ten years, I have used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been really disappointed. Up till recently, I was using MyThemeShop, which was fairly good. But I had to do a great deal of customization to allow it to do and operate the way I needed it to. A few weeks ago I decided to provide GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is undoubtedly the best WordPress theme I’ve discovered in a decade . I was blown away and am moving all my sites to GeneratePress. I will go into exactly why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review under. And if you are wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. Top 10 Best WordPress Themes

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 years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a lot of stuff on there isn’t that great, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this case, this 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 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 subject, since it’s worth . Actually, Tom, if you read this and are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.

Features

Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable things you don’t want running. This is only one of the greatest reasons I adore GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all of the devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration with all 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 would like to dive into even more customizations, these are a great combo. I have also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built-in.

A lot of hooks and filters that make it good for programmers.

Excellent active service from the developer. On average, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the subject has existed long enough that everything I wholeheartedly throughout the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds in their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it is Time to the fun part! I always test a brand new theme right from the box with no customizations to see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I could 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 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 that is not the situation. You can tell that Tom actually worked hard on ensuring that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the number of files isn’t as important. However, the dimensions is! Have a look at some 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

This is a programmer that cares about performance! And I’ve Seen the same throughout each the premium add-ons. They are literally as small as you can possibly get them. In reality, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file included. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming around the cornerwe can anticipate this to get smaller too.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular design. You can activate/deactivate whatever you aren’t using to guarantee they don’t load on your site. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin which has a script manager built-in, I felt right at home with this. Everything should be designed this way.

If You are interested, I am using the next add-ons on this site:

Website

Shades

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 young child motif . This makes my life much easier. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally update my GeneratePress theme this exact minute rather than lose a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make this possible. It permits you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. Top 10 Best WordPress Themes

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On each Page/post that you have a great deal of options. You can alter the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

You Can easily swap a page involving the default to a full width page, as well as disable components.

The WordPress customizer choices is really where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these options are enabled by the superior add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we’d be here all day. But allow me to show you couple which really come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly recommend grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be made by precisely the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super easy way to add responsive columns to any page or article. Features include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid thickness

Insert custom courses

Insert custom inline styles

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You might want to Also catch his incredible WP Show Posts plugin also. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this website? That is 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 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 Sections add-on in the premium edition of GeneratePress allows you to do all sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a webpage builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not just for blogs! I am in fact using GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. But as you can see below, it looks nothing like a site.

Speed Tests

For those Of you who are regular readers, you likely didn’t even notice I changed the whole motif that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop motif which I had spent a year customizing. Here’s a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop motif was pretty quickly, but I invested a great deal of time customizing it. In fact, I’ve 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 motif I managed to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And keep in mind, I do not have a kid motif. All the customizations were made with the awesome 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 could create a copy of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I’m happy to allow you to know that now you can put in my woorkup theme on your GeneratePress website with only a single click! It is known as the Marketer theme. Get started using a fantastic blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a fairly basic minimum site, since I do not use it for much. Since you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I was Able to replicate the whole look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under one hour. And as you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to get rid of a couple plugins that weren’t needed due to 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 theme from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum website, as we just use it to our LLC. As you can see it loaded pretty quickly. Top 10 Best WordPress Themes

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

I can not express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all my websites to it (which includes some EDD e-commerce websites ). After 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 restored my faith in multi-purpose themes, which when done the right way, can actually perform faster.

And The best news isI now have a thousand more choices to pick from than I did earlier.

What GeneratePress Is Great For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users that want to be able to customize and control precisely how their site looks.

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

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

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

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

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

While GeneratePress is becoming a lot easier to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones when you initially install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you want it to, you will most likely 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 explain why GeneratePress is so common.

Plenty Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Performance, another area where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization choices.

GeneratePress Uses 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 version of GeneratePress gives you decent options, but should you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize nearly everything about your site.

For Example, if you go in the Layout area, you can configure comprehensive settings for yourown:

Header — you can move your header round and alter 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 dimensions, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — like the number of widgets to add

Similarly, That the Typography area enables you to 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 every single element on your site.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide 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 are a newcomer. But as soon as you realize how the preferences come together, you’ll have complete control over how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Across All of its attributes, GeneratePress always has a focus on exceptional performance and clean code. The entire motif is less than 30 kB, and it is about as little as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress topics are still 200+ kB. And a few poorly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

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

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

First, I put up a vacant site utilizing 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 in any way! But GeneratePress can do better.

Next, I triggered 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 that same test with other themes, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. Top 10 Best WordPress Themes

Other Helpful 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 layout templates.
Page Header — lets you create a exceptional page header on a per-page basis.
Sections — this is sort of like lightweight page construction. It permits you to create separate”sections” onto a page, each with their own design and column preferences.

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular interface where you could select and choose what features you want to trigger.

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

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

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

Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a new Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any one of the 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Yes — this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click a couple buttons to import a presentation site.

Page-Level Settings Provide You Detailed Control Over Every Bit Of Content

With Most topics, every page and post will use the same configurations for the most part. You may have some custom templates or formats — but you do not have very much control past 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 (like changing the sidebar from right to left)
Choose the number of footer widgets to use
Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, article featured picture, post title, or footer
Produce a special”container” for your page builder

Where These controls would be the most useful is if you are using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain components, you are able to create the proper baseline for your page builder layout, making it easy to create custom articles as needed. Top 10 Best WordPress Themes

GeneratePress Pricing: Affordable And Works On Unlimited Sites

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

That said, If you’re serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what makes the theme so flexible. The free version doesn’t give you nearly as numerous configurations from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs only $39.95, and that provides you use on infinite websites . You will also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and updates following the first year (you can, obviously, continue using GeneratePress after the initial year without renewing — you won’t get any more updates).

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

Wrap-up

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

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

But If you’re willing to spend some time changing preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn 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 some time.

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

If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, so you should have no difficulty making your site load in under one minute. Top 10 Best WordPress Themes