Background WordPress 4 Themes

Within the past 10 years, I’ve used a great deal of different WordPress themes and have been really disappointed. Up until recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, which was fairly excellent. But I still had to do a lot of customization to make it perform and work how I wanted it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it is undoubtedly the best WordPress theme I’ve discovered in 10 years. I was dismissed and am now moving all of my websites 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 in addition to many other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. WordPress 4 Themes

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 actually seen it for years in the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am pretty picky when it comes to web performance, so I have a tendency to dismiss everything in the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there is not that great, or not encouraged for long. However, in this case, this was a mistake. The theme now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy matches, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.

I Really set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the superior 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 a number of the qualities. I’m going to be covering the superior version of the subject, since it’s worth . In fact, Tom, if you read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you do not need running. This is only one of the biggest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks great across all devices.

Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I haven’t been a fan of the customizer previously, but Tom does it right.

Compatible with all popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Great 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 really are a terrific combo. I’ve also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Translation ready.

Font awesome built-in.

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

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

The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have great documentation on their website, the theme has existed long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup process was found within a couple of seconds in their own forum.

Diving Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time to the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to just see how fast the base is. This tells me a great deal 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 quite impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to produce a lot of big files, but this isn’t the case. You may tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as small as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the number of files is not as important. But the size is! Have a peek at some of the core 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

This is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen the same throughout all the premium add-ons. They’re as small as possible get them. In reality, Font Awesome is most likely the largest file included. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 coming around the cornerwe could expect this to get smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are setup in what I would call a modular layout. It is possible to activate/deactivate whatever you are not using to ensure they do not load on your website. As the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built, I felt right at home for this. Everything ought to be designed this way.

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

Blog

Colors

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 Child theme. 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 rather than shed one customization. The hooks add-on certainly can help make it possible. It allows you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. WordPress 4 Themes

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

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

You Can easily swap a page between the default option to a complete width page, as well as disable elements.

The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these options are permitted from the superior add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here daily. But allow me to show you couple which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also created by the exact same programmer as GeneratePress. It allows you a super simple way to add responsive columns into any page or post. Features include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid width

Mobile grid width

Add Customized classes

Insert custom inline designs

Equal height columns

Here is An example below:

You May Want to Also catch his incredible WP Show Posts plugin also. See my featured posts on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a specific”featured” category. You can also have it show past modified/updated articles, recent articles, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works great.

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium version of GeneratePress allows you to perform all kinds of things in terms of design. Consider it like a webpage builder without the bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not just for blogs! I’m in reality utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is running Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. However, as you can see below, it looks nothing like a site.

Speed Tests

For all those Of those that are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice that I changed the whole theme that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme that I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My old MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I spent a lot of time scrutinizing it. In reality, I’ve gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice now is, simply get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together 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 theme. All the customizations were created 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 make a copy of woorkup to your new GeneratePress site library. I’m happy to let you know that you can now install my woorkup motif on your GeneratePress website with only a click! It is known as the Marketer motif. Get started with a great blog design instantly.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my personal site, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimum website, as I do not use it for much. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been 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 even able to eliminate a few plugins which weren’t needed due to GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved over our organization website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimal site, as we just use it to our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast. WordPress 4 Themes

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

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

I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I’m moving over all of my websites to it (which includes some EDD e-commerce sites). After I have my 9 websites all running in GP without any child themes, my entire life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has restored my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the correct way, can actually perform faster.

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

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the ideal alternative for performance-focused users who 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 website that you build will have a great base to make it load fast.

Since Of that, people 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 website.

But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…

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

For Example, if you realize you wish to create a style blog, you might be happier picking out a niche theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.

While GeneratePress has gotten a lot simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Website Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you first install it.

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

GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique

Here Are some of the specific characteristics that clarify why GeneratePress is so common.

Lots Of Customization Options In The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Past Functionality, another area where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization options.

GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this can be convenient as you’ll have the ability to see all the changes that you make in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you decent options, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, you will have the ability to customize nearly all about your site.

For Example, if you go into the Layout area, you can configure detailed settings for your:

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 design — such as featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
Footer layout — just like the number of widgets to include

Similarly, The Typography area lets you control the font to get each and every element on your website, including buttons:

And You also get a thorough area to control the colour of each and every element on your site.

All In all, GeneratePress will give you a lot more customization options from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other themes. This level of detail might be a little overwhelming if you are a newcomer. But once you understand the way the preferences come together, you will have complete control on how your website looks.

Optimized Performance And Quick Page Load Times

Around All of its features, GeneratePress always has a focus on exceptional performance and tidy code. The whole motif is less than 30 kB, which will be about as little as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And a few badly coded themes can even surpass 1 MB!

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

Place That together, and you get a superfast-loading theme. How fast? To give you a sense, I ran a small test.

First, I put up an empty website using a random popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing 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 perform.

Next, I activated GeneratePress on the exact 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% 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 topics, you’ll continue to find that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes in existence. WordPress 4 Themes

Other Helpful Premium Extensions, Plus A Modular Approach

Beyond Giving you more design controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other useful features like:

Elements — a exceptional feature which 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 kind of like lightweight page construction. It lets you create separate”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column settings.

To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular interface where you could pick and choose exactly which characteristics you would like to trigger.

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

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

In The past, you needed to build GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the theme difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, however, the developer added a fresh Website Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demonstration websites .

You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.

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

Page-Level Settings Provide You Comprehensive Control Over Each Piece 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 — however you don’t have very much control past that.

GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a new Layout meta box for each and every post and page:

You Can utilize this meta box to:

Change how many sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
Choose how many footer widgets to use
Disable certain components, such as your header, navigation menu, post featured image, post title, or footer
Produce a special”container” for your own page builder

Where These controls are the most helpful is if you’re using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain components, you are able to produce the proper baseline for your own page builder design, making it effortless to create custom content as needed. WordPress 4 Themes

GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

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

Nevertheless, If you are serious about using GeneratePress, I believe you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what makes the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you nearly as numerous configurations from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs just $39.95, and that gives you use on infinite sites. You’ll also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to continue receiving support and updates after the initial year (you can, obviously, keep using GeneratePress after the initial year without beating — you just won’t receive any more upgrades ).

When You believe that the normal premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a fantastic price.

Conclusion

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

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

But If you’re ready to spend time altering preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to flip it into any sort of WordPress website. Or, you might even be able to find a starter site that fits your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It’s one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics you will find. So 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, you should have no problem making your site load in under one second. WordPress 4 Themes