Intro WordPress Themes Premium Free
Over the past 10 decades, I’ve used a great deal of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up till recently, I was utilizing MyThemeShop, that was fairly good. However, I had to do a lot of customization to allow it to do and work the way I wanted it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the best WordPress theme I have found in 10 years. I was dismissed and am now moving all of my sites to GeneratePress. I’ll enter precisely why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X motif, Divi as well as many other lightweight and heavier multi-purpose themes. WordPress Themes Premium Free
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 know that I am fairly picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything from the repository. Typically because a great deal of stuff on there is not that good, or not supported for long. Nonetheless, in this circumstance, this was a mistake. The motif 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 set up the free version of the theme and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was envisioning a theme should work. And I will go into that more below, but let’s first look at a number of the qualities. I will be covering the premium version of the subject, since it’s worth very penny. In fact, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and so are seeing Scottsdale, Arizona, java on me.
Features
Super lightweight and fast. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you do not need running. This is one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.
Responsive, looks fantastic across all of the devices.
Schema built-in, for greater outcomes in SERPs.
Dramatic integration with all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a lover of the customizer in the past, but Tom does it right.
Compatible with popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Fantastic 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 are a great combo. I have also read that people using Beaver Builder have experienced success.
Translation ready.
Font awesome built in.
A lot of filters and hooks that make it good for developers.
Great active support from the developer. On average, 3 updates per month.
The Documentation can be incredible. Besides have great documentation on their website, the subject has existed long enough that what I wholeheartedly throughout the setup procedure was found inside a few seconds from their forum.
Diving Into GeneratePress
Now it’s Time for the fun part! I always test a new theme right out of the box without any customizations to just see how fast the base is. This tells me a lot of what I could expect by the time that I add everything for this. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress motif 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 generate a whole lot of big files, but that is not the situation. 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 documents isn’t as important. But the size is! Take 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
That is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen the same during all the premium add-ons. They are as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file included. And that is not even his. Together with Font Awesome 5 coming around the corner, we can anticipate this to get smaller also.
The premium add-ons Are installation in what I’d call a modular design. It is possible to activate/deactivate whatever you aren’t using to ensure they don’t load on your site. Since the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin that has a script manager built-in, I felt right at home with this. Everything should be made this way.
If You’re curious, I’m using the next 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 longer have to use a young child theme. This makes my life much simpler. No longer editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress motif this very minute rather than lose a single customization. The hooks add-on certainly helps make this possible. It allows you to add custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. WordPress Themes Premium Free
Other Things I Love About GeneratePress
On every Page/post that you have a great deal of options. You can change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.
You Can easily swap a page between the default option to a full width page, in addition to disable components.
The WordPress customizer options is where GeneratePress really shines! Bear in mind, lots of these choices are permitted from the premium add-ons. I can not show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. But let me show you couple which really come in handy.
Responsive Columns
Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is the free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this can be created by precisely the same programmer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super simple way to add responsive columns to any page or article. Characteristics include:
Desktop grid width
Tablet grid width
Mobile grid width
Insert Customized classes
Insert custom inline designs
Equal height columns
This is An example under:
You May Want to Also catch his amazing WP Display Posts plugin too. See my featured articles on the sidebar of this site? That’s using the WP Display 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 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 do all sorts of things in terms of design. Think of it like a webpage builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is definitely not just for blogs! I’m in reality utilizing GeneratePress for our ecommerce site (perfmatters.io) which is running Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to check it out. However, as you can see below, it looks like a blog.
Speed Tests
For those Of those that are regular readers, you likely didn’t even notice I changed the entire theme that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme which I had spent a year customizing. Here is a comparison under.
woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme
My old MyThemeShop theme was already pretty quickly, but I spent a lot of time customizing it. In fact, I have gotten a great deal of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice now is, just get GeneratePress!
woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme
Together with the New GeneratePress motif I managed to achieve faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I don’t have a child theme. Each of the customizations were made with the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).
Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he could create a replica of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I’m pleased to allow you to know that now you can put in my woorkup theme on your GeneratePress site with only a single click! It’s known as the Marketer motif. Get started with a great blog layout immediately.
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’s a fairly basic minimum site, as I do not use it to get much. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast.
brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to duplicate the entire look 100% in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can view it loads faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a couple plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.
forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme
Additionally, I Moved over our business website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It’s a fairly basic minimum website, as we simply use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast. WordPress Themes Premium Free
forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme
I was Able to move everything over and get it looking exactly how I wanted it in under one hour. And since you can see it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page weight 2x!
I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I’m moving over all my websites to it (which comprises some EDD e-commerce websites ). After I’ve got my 9 websites all running in GP without any child topics, my life will be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose subjects , and that when done the correct way, can actually perform faster.
And The best news is, I finally have a thousand more options to choose from than I did earlier.
What GeneratePress Is Good For…
GeneratePress Is the perfect option for performance-focused users who wish to have the ability to customize and control exactly how their site appears.
You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on functionality, the site that you build will have a great base to make it load quickly.
Because Of that, those who assemble 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 site.
But GeneratePress Might Not Be A Good Combination If…
…you Want something which will instantly look perfect out of the box.
For Example, if you know you want to produce a fashion blog, you might be happier picking out a market theme that is developed exclusively for fashion bloggers.
While GeneratePress is becoming a great deal easier to use, as a result of 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’ll most likely need to go in and personalize things. And while the substantial benefit of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, especially casual users, do not like having to make those changes .
GeneratePress Features That Make It Unique
Here Are a few of the particular characteristics that explain why GeneratePress is so common.
Plenty Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer
Beyond Functionality, another place where GeneratePress does well is its customization options.
GeneratePress Uses the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient because you will have the ability to see all the changes that you create in real time.
The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you decent options, but should you own GeneratePress Premium, you will be able to customize nearly all about your site.
For Example, if you go in the Layout region, you can configure comprehensive settings to your:
- Header — you can move your header around and alter its styling
- Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
- Sidebar design — you can utilize a Couple of sidebars
- Blog post layout — such as featured picture dimensions, metadata, etc..
- Footer layout — just like how many widgets to include
Likewise, The Typography place enables you to control the font for each and every element on your website, including buttons:
And You also receive a thorough area to control the colour of each and every element on your site.
All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will give you much more customization choices from the WordPress Customizer compared to most other topics. This amount of detail may be a bit overwhelming if you’re a newcomer. But once you understand how the settings come together, you’ll have full control over how your site appears.
Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times
Across All of its attributes, GeneratePress always has a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The entire theme is less than 30 kB, which 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 surpass 1 MB!
GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which will help you avoid the render blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.
Put That together, and you obtain a superfast-loading motif. How quickly? To give you an idea, I ran a little test.
First, I put up an empty site utilizing a haphazard popular WordPress.org theme (Envo Magazine). After testing its functionality with Pingdom, it
- Had a performance grade of 77
- Loaded in 1.05 seconds
- Had a page size of 243.9 kB
- Had 15 requests
That is Not bad in any way! But GeneratePress can do better.
Next, I activated GeneratePress on the same test site without changing anything else. Here is how GeneratePress did:
- Had a performance grade 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% less
If You do the exact same test with different themes, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. WordPress Themes Premium Free
Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach
Past Giving you more design controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other helpful features such as:
- Elements — a exceptional feature which allows you create custom hooks, page headers, or design templates.
- Page Header — lets you create a exceptional page header onto a per-page basis.
- Sections — that is kind of like lightweight page building. It permits you to create different”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column settings.
To Stay lightweight, GeneratePress also gives you a modular interface where you can select and choose what characteristics you want to activate.
That Way, you don’t have to slow your site down for a quality which you’ll never use.
Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Site
In The past, you had to construct GeneratePress sites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which left the theme difficult for casual users to set up.
Earlier In 2018, however, the developer added a new Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users that allows you easily import any among those 25+ pre-built demo sites.
You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.
Yes this site still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a few buttons to import a demo site.
Page-Level Settings Provide 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 may have some custom templates or formats — but you don’t have very much control beyond that.
GeneratePress Changes that by giving you a new Layout meta name box for every single post and page:
You Can use this meta box to:
- Change the number of sidebars your website uses, or the sidebar orientation (like changing 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, article title, or footer
- Produce a special”container” to your own page builder
Where These controls are the most helpful is if you are using a WordPress site builder.
By Disabling certain components, you’re in a position to produce the correct baseline for your page builder design, which makes it easy to create custom content as needed. WordPress Themes Premium Free
GeneratePress Replies: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites
The Heart GeneratePress motif is available for free at WordPress.org.
Nevertheless, If you’re serious about utilizing GeneratePress, I feel you should buy the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that’s what produces the theme so flexible. The free version doesn’t give you almost as numerous settings from the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also lose out on the premade Site Library.
GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs just $39.95, which provides you use on unlimited websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you would like to renew to continue receiving support and updates following the initial year (you can, of course, keep using GeneratePress after the first year without renewing — you won’t get any more upgrades ).
When You believe the typical premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress offers a great value.
Wrap-up
As I said, I do not believe GeneratePress is for everyone.
If You desire a niche-specific theme, you can probably save time by purchasing a theme that satisfies your requirements 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 sort of WordPress site. Or, you may even be able to locate a starter website that fulfills your needs to save a little time.
Additionally, It’s one of those fastest-loading WordPress topics that you will find. Therefore, if you’re looking for the best performance possible, utilizing GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s foundation is a great choice.
If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, you should have no difficulty making your site load in under one minute. WordPress Themes Premium Free
To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.