Introduction WordPress Theme Best Quality
Over the past 10 years, I have used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I had been utilizing MyThemeShop, that was fairly good. However, I had to perform a great deal of customization to allow it to do and work the way I wanted 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 a decade . I had been blown away and am moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter exactly why in my comprehensive GeneratePress review below. And if you are wondering, yes I have attempted Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi in addition to several other lightweight and thicker multi-purpose themes. WordPress Theme Best Quality
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.
GeneratePress Evaluation
GeneratePress is a free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a programmer from Canada. I’ve actually seen it for many years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I have a tendency to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a great deal of things on there is not that good, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, that was a mistake. The theme now has more than half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star evaluations. So obviously Tom is doing something right here.
I Really set up the free version of the theme 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 work. And I’ll go into that more below, but let us first look at some of the qualities. I will be covering the superior version of the subject, since it’s worth very penny. In fact, Tom, if you read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.
Features
Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you don’t need running. This is only one of the biggest reasons I love GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks great across all devices.
Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.
Impressive integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a fan of the customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.
Compatible with popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Great browser service back to IE8.
Additionally, it works great with the popular fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you want to dive into even more customizations, these are a great combo. I’ve also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.
Resumes prepared.
Font wonderful built in.
A lot of filters and hooks that make it great for developers.
Excellent active service from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation is also incredible. Besides have good documentation on their site, the subject has been around long enough that what I Googled during the setup procedure was found within a few seconds in their forum.
Going Deep Into GeneratePress
Now it’s Time to the fun part! I always test a brand new theme right from the box with no customizations to just see how fast the foundation is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time that I add everything to it. 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 worried about with GeneratePress was that the modular design was going to produce a lot of big files, but this is not the situation. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on making sure that every file loaded in GeneratePress is as little as possible. Together with HTTP/2, the amount of documents is not as important. However, the size 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
That is a programmer that cares about performance! And I have Seen exactly the same during all of the premium add-ons. They’re as small as you can possibly get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the largest file contained. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 arriving round the corner, we could expect this to get smaller too.
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. Since the co-developer of the perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built-in, I felt right at home with this. Everything should be designed this way.
If You’re curious, I am using the following add-ons on this site:
Website
Colors
Copyright
Hooks
Page Header
Spacing
Typography
No Child Theme Needed
One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is I no more have to use a Child theme. This makes my life so much easier. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php documents. I can literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this very moment rather than shed one customization. The hooks add-on definitely can help make it possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress site. WordPress Theme Best Quality
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On each 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 complete width page, as well as disable elements.
The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, a lot of these options are enabled by the superior add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we would 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 is also made by the exact same developer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super easy way to incorporate responsive columns to any page or article. Features include:
Desktop grid width
Tablet grid thickness
Mobile grid width
Add custom courses
Insert custom inline styles
Equal height columns
Here is An example under:
You might 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 Display Posts plugin. I have it set to display posts from a particular”featured” category. You can also have it show last modified/updated posts, recent posts, etc.. I’m 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 version of GeneratePress lets you do all kinds of things concerning design. Consider it like a page builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I’m in fact utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) that is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.
Speed Tests
For all those Of you that are regular readers, you likely did not even notice I changed the entire motif that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour to get GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme which I had spent annually customizing. Here’s a comparison under.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My older MyThemeShop theme was already pretty fast, 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 publish 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 do not have a child motif. Each of the customizations were made using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).
Like the WordPress theme I have running on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he could make a replica of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I am happy to let you know that now you can put in my woorkup motif in your own GeneratePress website with just a single click! It is known as the Marketer theme. Get started with a fantastic blog layout instantly.
brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
I also Moved within my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimal website, since I do not use it for much. As you can see it already loaded pretty quickly.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to duplicate the entire look 100 percent in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can view 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
I also Moved over our business site, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I had been using a motif from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimal website, as we simply use it to our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty quickly. WordPress Theme Best Quality
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 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 total page burden 2x!
I can’t express my Excitement about locating GeneratePress and I’m moving over all my sites for this (which comprises several EDD e-commerce websites ). After I have my 9 websites all running in GP without any child topics, my life is going to be a breeze! The programmer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , which when done the correct way, can actually perform quicker.
And The best thing is, I now have a billion more choices to choose from than I did before.
What GeneratePress Is Great For…
GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users that wish to be able to customize and control exactly how their site looks.
You Can make GeneratePress do pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the website that you build will have a great foundation to make it load quickly.
Since Of that, those who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll typically pair it with a WordPress page builder and use it for literally any kind of site.
But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…
…you Want something that will immediately appear perfect out of the box.
For Example, if you realize you wish to create a style blog, you might be happier choosing a niche theme that’s developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.
While GeneratePress has gotten a lot easier to use, thanks to its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still seems very barebones if you first install it.
So To create GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you will almost certainly need to go in and personalize things. And though the significant benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly casual users, do not 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 From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Beyond Performance, another area where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.
GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, and this is convenient because you’ll be able to see all the changes that you make in real time.
The Free variant of GeneratePress gives you adequate options, but if you own GeneratePress Premium, you’ll be able to customize nearly everything about your website.
For Example, if you go into the Design region, you may configure detailed settings to your:
- Header — you can move your header round and alter its styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, including sticky menus
- Sidebar layout — you can use one or two sidebars
- Blog post layout — such as featured image size, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — like how many widgets to include
Similarly, The Typography place enables you to control the font to get each and every element on your website, such as buttons:
And You also receive a detailed region to control the color of each and every element on your website.
All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you much more customization options from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other topics. This amount of detail may be a bit overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But once you realize how the preferences 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 includes a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The whole 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 badly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which helps you avoid the render obstructing error that Google Pagespeed Insights often mentions.
Place That collectively, and you obtain a superfast-loading motif. How fast? To give you a sense, I ran a little test.
First, I set up an empty site utilizing a random popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After testing 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 asks
That is Not bad at all! However, GeneratePress can perform.
Next, I activated GeneratePress on exactly the exact same test site without altering anything else. Here is how GeneratePress did:
- Had a performance tier of 87, 10 points better
- Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% faster
- Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
- Had 9 asks, ~40% fewer
If You do the exact same test with different topics, you are going to continue to find that GeneratePress is among those fastest-loading WordPress themes in life. WordPress Theme Best Quality
Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach
Past Giving you more design controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium comes with a lot of other helpful features such as:
- Elements — a unique feature that allows you create customized hooks, page headers, or design templates.
- Page Header — allows you create a unique page header onto a per-page basis.
- Sections — that is kind of like lightweight page building. It lets you create separate”sections” onto a webpage, each with their own design and column settings.
To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular port where you could select and choose what characteristics you would like to trigger.
That Way, you do not 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 needed to construct GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which made the motif difficult for casual users to set up.
Earlier In 2018, however, the programmer added a fresh Site Library feature for GeneratePress Premium users which allows you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demo sites.
You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.
Yes this Website still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a few buttons to import a demo site.
Page-Level Settings Give You Comprehensive Control Over Each Bit Of Content
With Most topics, each page and post will use the 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 providing you a new Design meta name 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 changing the sidebar from right to left)
- Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
- Disable certain components, like your header, navigation menu, article featured image, article title, or footer
- Create a special”container” for your page builder
Where These controls would be the most useful is if you’re using a WordPress site builder.
By Disabling certain components, you’re able to produce the correct baseline for your own page builder layout, making it easy to create custom content as needed. WordPress Theme Best Quality
GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Core GeneratePress theme can be obtained for free at WordPress.org.
That said, If you are serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I believe you should purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so elastic. The free version doesn’t give you almost as many configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you will also lose out on the premade Site Library.
GeneratePress Premium is also still fairly affordable. It costs only $39.95, and that provides you use on infinite sites. You will also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to keep on receiving support and upgrades following the first year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress after the first year without beating — you won’t receive any more upgrades ).
When You believe that the normal premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great value.
Summary
As I said, I don’t think GeneratePress is for everybody.
If You want a niche-specific motif, you can probably save time by buying a theme that fits your requirements for your niche from day one.
But If you are willing to spend time altering settings, GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you may even have the ability to find a starter site that fulfills your needs to save some time.
Additionally, It is one of the 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 good choice.
If You combine it with fast-loading hosting, so you shouldn’t have any problem making your website load in under one minute. WordPress Theme Best Quality
To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.