If you’ve been searching for an affordable yet feature-rich and highly customizable theme for your WordPress Blog, then this Generatepress theme review is for you.
That’s quite a statement to start with. Isn’t it?
I had Generatepress on this site until about 2-3 years back when I moved over to Thrive Themes because I needed the entire suite that would help me handle my course site, landing pages, optin forms etc. (Read my review of Thrive Themes here)
Actually, I had even purchased my first purchase of the Generatepress theme way back in 2017. Below are some of my purchase and renewal receipts.
And here is my latest receipt of renewal.
If you are planning to go with the premium one, then I have a very nice little hack here which will make you renew the license at a discount rate each time.
The Generatepress team gives discounts of approximately 35% twice in a year – one is during Black Friday offers and the other one is during their anniversary.
You can also renew the licenses at this discount offers. And the best part, you can renew it for a number of years and the years just get added to the balance tenure in your subscription.
That is one of the reasons why I am so fond of this company. They truly care about their customers.
Now back to our discussion and the Generatepress Review.
WordPress is a blogging platform for those who are not technology inclined.
There are thousands of bloggers who can blog today even though they don’t know a single word of HTML, all because of WordPress and it is due to this convenience that WordPress is the most popular blogging site.
Even though WordPress is such a simple blogging website, there wasn’t a single WordPress theme that could pass on this same simplicity to the users.
Unless you are computer literate, it is unlikely that you will be able to personalize your WordPress blog appearance and make it unique for your Blog.
You can hire a designer to design a custom WordPress theme for you. or, if you did not want to compromise on speed and thus wanted to have a clean-coded theme, then the only other option was to hire a WordPress designer to design a custom theme for Thesis or, Genesis framework.
Both of them are costly ventures and if you don’t have the money to do this, then you wouldn’t do it and might just have to settle with the overall common theme.
I was looking for a theme that came with easy customization options so that I could give my blog a unique theme.
It is then that I discovered this theme called Generatepress.
But I’ll tell you about this topic first, then I’ll introduce you to 5 blogs with the same topic but dissimilar design.
There are a few other similar blogs as well that have a different design. And the peculiarity about all this is that all of them were made custom within under 20 minutes.
[Note: Some of these blogs are not present today. I have a business where I generate blogs and then flip it. Some of these flipped blogs you see above weren’t active these days and I’m not so sure about their statuses]
Each of the above designs was built on the sole theme – GeneratePress.
The first design you see above is this blog exactly as it used to be like 5 years ago.
Since I’ve grown my business, so too have the needs. I switched over to Thrive themes a few years ago because it was logical to use the Thrive Suite (which is a collection of tools) to operate my business. You can read my review of Thrive themes here!
But I still continue to use GeneratePress on most of my other websites and blogs.
Now, before I share with you some of the details of this theme and a brief overview of its features, let me share with you some truly important facts about the theme.
- GeneratePress is a FREE theme if you want something basic. But if you need customization, then GeneratePress has a premium version
- The Premium version of GeneratePress is a plugin that you install and costs very little at only $59 which is the cheapest priced WordPress theme you will ever purchase. You have many options for customization, if you opt for the Premium version.
- GeneratePress is developed and supported by a dedicated team who work really hard on constant theme development, unlike most of the other so-called cheap theme developers who emerge during the rains and then can’t be found after you’ve made the purchase
- Even Andre Chaperon uses this theme. (smiling face)
Since we now understand what this theme is and why precisely I am in love with the theme, let me take you through some of the things regarding the theme that made me fall in love with it.
GeneratePress Review Summary
This review will be a little lengthy since we need to highlight many points. However, in case you are short of time, then this summary could come handy.
Overall, I believe that Generatepress is maybe the most affordable WordPress theme out there. It is good for new and old WordPress users alike.
One of the best features that the theme has is:
- It has properly coded code that doesn’t lead to bloating and thus loads very quickly. You are sure to get excellent PageSpeed Insights score.
- The blazing-fast loading times are even though there are so many features and customization options on offer.
- You can customize any part of the theme with the native WordPress Customizer so that it can be as personalized as you want it to be.
- You can use the theme to develop a complete custom WordPress theme for your blog, provided you are ready to use WordPress’s block editor.
As far as the cons are concerned, Generatepress can be a little intimidating if you are a complete beginner and would like to shift the theme to provide it with a unique look.
To you, perhaps other themes in the market will be available that will be superior to GeneratePress. Or, perhaps you can even start with utilizing one of the available templates present in the theme library of GeneratePress or, utilize the extremely simple version which also will be quite pretty, clean and tidy.
Let us now move ahead in the review a little deeper.
GeneratePress Theme Review – The Features
Almost all of the best WordPress themes come with a myriad of features but the fact of the matter is that using all of these features to your benefit is a task of Herculean proportions.
Take the Thesis theme, for example. I love the theme and can get away with it because I know some HTML, CSS and have customised a great deal of the theme too. But for the person who does not know a thing about all of these, Thesis could be a catastrophe.
And it is here that GeneratePress excels.
Here’s how their http requests data looks.
Their total file size of their JavaScript files and CSS file is approximately 7.2kb which is the minimum of all other themes of this category.
What you should keep in mind here is that it is the performance of the base theme. It might be changed when you begin to add plugins and perform other kinds of customizations.
But then that is something which we are not meant to blame the theme for. Isn’t it?
It is a great “out of the box” theme. Even if you don’t customize anything, it is a highly fashionable minimalist theme that will make everyone love it.
