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Hestia Theme Review: A Brutally Honest Theme Review (2024)

A Quick Overview

Hestia is a sleek WordPress theme suitable for beginners and experienced website creators. It’s known for its simplicity and performance, making it great for various websites, from personal blogs to businesses. Key features include an easy-to-use customizer, compatibility with major page builders, and a variety of starter sites.
a modern material design theme

Editor's Rating

Overall rating
3.6/5
(3.6)
Hestia is a user-friendly and fast WordPress theme. It offers easy installation and customization options for users of all levels. While its basic setup wizard and limited demo sites may be limiting for some, regular updates ensure reliability. The pricing is flexible, yet adding advanced features to lower-tier plans would enhance its appeal.

Pros and Cons

Here are the pros and cons of Hestia:
Pros
  • Ease of installation: Hestia offers a straightforward installation process, both for its free and pro versions, making it accessible for beginners.
  • Performance: Known for its impressive speed and efficiency, Hestia has excellent performance metrics, with fast loading times that benefit user experience and SEO.
  • Compatibility with page builders: It works well with most major page builder plugins, offering flexibility in design and customization.
  • User-friendly customizer: The theme includes a simple and intuitive customizer that allows for easy adjustments of settings like sidebar width, container width, and more.
  • Regular updates and maintenance: Hestia receives consistent updates, ensuring it stays up-to-date with the latest web technologies and trends.
  • Documentation and support: Comprehensive documentation and multiple support channels, including a Facebook group and WordPress support forum, provide good user assistance.
  • Flexible pricing tiers: With a free version available and various pro plans, Hestia caters to a wide range of budgets and needs.
  • 30-day money-back guarantee: This policy allows users to try the theme risk-free.
Cons
  • Limited advanced customization: While simple to use, the customizer and setup wizard might not offer enough depth for more advanced users or specific customization needs.
  • Fewer demo sites: Compared to some competitors, Hestia offers a limited number of demo sites, which may not cater to all user preferences or needs.
  • Manual pro version installation: Upgrading to the pro version requires manually downloading and uploading the theme, which might be cumbersome for some users.
  • Limited support hours: The customer support is not available 24/7, which could be inconvenient for users in different time zones or those needing immediate assistance.
  • Lack of advanced features in lower tiers: Premium features like white label and priority support are only available in the highest pricing tier, which might not be affordable for all users.
  • Higher page requests: Despite its fast load times, Hestia requires more requests to load all elements of a page, which could be optimized further.

Ease of Use

I would rate Hestia's overall ease of use at 3.7/5.

Here’s why:

  • The installation process for both the free and pro versions of Hestia is straightforward and smooth.
  • A concern is the manual download and upload of the pro theme from the ThemeIsle website, which can be less convenient than in-dashboard upgrades from competitors.
  • The theme setup process, including the setup wizard and the demo sites feature, provides a mixed experience.

The overall rating considers Hestia's user-friendliness and potential improvements, such as the pro version installation process and setup wizard depth.

Installation Process

Hestia, unlike its sister theme Neve, is a theme-only install — if you want the pro version, you need to download the theme itself from the website.

For free users:

  • Go to appearance > themes > add new
  • Search for the Hestia theme
  • Install and activate the theme
find and install the hestia theme from the repository

For the pro version, you need to buy a plan (more on this later) for the theme first from ThemeIsle and download the pro theme.

After downloading the theme:

  • Go to appearance > add new theme > upload plugin
  • Browse through your files and find the theme
  • Click the install now button
install the hestia pro theme to your website

For the license key, you need to get it from the purchase history page in your ThemeIsle account.

Once you copy the license key:

  • Head over to settings > general
  • Scroll down to the bottom
  • Enter the license key and activate
activate the hestia pro license from the general settings page

You will now be able to use the pro features of Hestia.

Theme Setup

For theme setup, there are two important things to discuss:

  • Setup wizard
  • Demo sites

Right after installing the theme (any version), there is a setup wizard will appear:

hestia setup wizard will help with the essential settings

It runs you through different basic setups for your site:

  • Site identity (logo + icon)
  • Brand color and typography
  • Homepage settings
  • Recommended add-ons (free)
add a site icon for your site using hestia’s theme wizard

At first glance, I thought the setup wizard would stop at the site icon settings.

Nevertheless, I feel like the wizard wasn’t helpful or was only focused on the most basic settings — which you can easily change in the settings menu.

For the demo sites, you need to visit the sites library in the appearance > pro options and select the demo site you want to use.

When you import a site, you can choose whether or not to install the following elements:

  • Content
  • Customizer
  • Widgets
choose the elements to import from the hestia original demo site

If there are any widgets that you don’t have, the theme will automatically install them for you.

Though the import function is simple, it gets the job done. Unfortunately, if you want to import specific pages, you can’t do that using the Hestia theme.

I will discuss more about the demo sites themselves in the features section.

👋 My thoughts here

It’s been a while since I found a theme with a free version that doesn’t require you to install a pro plugin.

In terms of ease of use, here are my comments:

  • The installation is quite smooth — for both the free version and the pro version.
  • Theme setup is a little meh even if Hestia has a theme setup wizard (that walks you through only the most basic settings).

One thing I feel that would be a little hassle is when you decide to upgrade from the version to the pro version.

That’s because you would still need to download the theme from ThemeIsle’s website and upload it manually to your website.

I can also confirm that while you have the free version active, and you installed the pro version, it won’t update the free version (it will install as a separate theme instead).

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Features

I would rate its overall features at 2.5/5.

Here’s why:

  • Hestia's compatibility with most page builder plugins is a significant advantage (for greater flexibility and customization).
  • The limited number of demo sites and their relatively basic appearance is a notable drawback.
  • Features like hooks, custom layouts, and specific customizer options may not be as valuable for beginners, who might find them complex or unnecessary.

Overall, the Hestia WordPress theme provides decent functionality, especially for beginners and those who prefer simplicity.

Unfortunately, it may not fully meet the needs of users seeking extensive customization options or advanced features.

Core Features

Here are the core features of Hestia:

1. Theme Customizer Options

Hestia is one of the simplest themes out there (even the pro version). Unfortunately, this can also be felt even in the customizer options.

These are the categories of settings that you will find the optimizer:

all the customizer settings available in the hestia pro

⚠️ Note: Hestia will recommend that you install the Orbit Fox Companion to get more customization options. It’s free so there’s no problem with installing it.

For the general settings, though there aren’t that many options here, it’s a plus for me for two reasons:

  1. They allow you to easily change the sidebar width and container width (other comparable WordPress themes only allow changing the container width).
  2. The addition of scroll to the top and sharing icons option (which you know aren’t always available in other themes).
customizing the general appearance settings with hestia pro

⚠️ Note: For any theme review, it’s important that we cover the live customizer options since those who won’t be using page builder will likely spend their time here.

The typography setting is also simple — you can choose a font family for the headings and body and then change the font size in different sections of the website.

The downer here is that it would’ve been great if there was an option to select a specific font size for each heading type.

For the header, at least they have predefined layouts available:

customizing the header options with hestia pro

Still under header options, you can also enable search, full-screen menu, mobile menu, and a transparent navbar.

There’s also an option there for the very top bar (it’s the yellow section above the header from the screenshot), one that’s higher than the header, where you can put widgets.

Unfortunately, the footer options don’t have as many options as the header:

customizing the footer options with hestia pro

For the blog settings, they also have predefined blog layouts and an option for featured posts with only one category (you can also disable this).

They also have options for the following:

  • Display blog categories (order)
  • Blog post content (excerpt or content)
  • Excerpt length
  • Post pagination
customizing the blog settings with hestia pro

Under the blog settings, there is an option for the authors section where you can opt to have team members appear at the bottom of the blog archive pages.

I don’t have anything against this — but it’s rather a waste of features.

In fact, this would’ve been better if there was a way to activate this on individual pages and posts as it can help with EEAT and YMYL in search engine optimization.

2. Hooks and Custom Layouts

Hooks and custom layouts are other features in the Hestia theme that have their option buttons under the appearance section.

If you’re not familiar with hooks, they’re points in the core, theme, or plugin where developers (or in this case, you) can register custom functions to run.

This is what you would see when you go to the pro hooks page:

hestia pro hooks before header and before header container

There are lots of locations (around 70+) where you can use hooks like:

  • Before header
  • After footer widgets
  • Slider section

If you have tried using Neve, then you would know that it also has a custom layout feature with lots of layout options.

👉 Related: Neve Theme Review: Speedster or Smoke and Mirrors?

Well, Hestia also has a custom layout feature — though it’s noticeably less powerful than the one from the Neve theme.

hestia custom layout settings

The layout options are limited — header, page header, footer, hooks, and 404 page compared to the numerous options you can find in Neve.

Demo Sites

Hestia has 8 demo sites designed for specific types of websites — the lowest plan will only have access to five starter sites.

This is what pro-personal users would see:

all the demo sites available to pro-personal users of hestia

Business and agency (no personal) users have access to the following starter sites:

  • Lawyers
  • Travel agency
  • Coffee shop
  • Gym

Before importing any site, you can choose to preview it (you will see a “preview” button when you hover your mouse over a demo site).

You can then import any demo site in the preview screen without going back to the main sites library screen.

preview screen of a demo site of the hestia theme

If you hover your mouse over the demo sites labeled as pro (only for business and agency plans), you can only find the preview button — no import button.

👋 My thoughts here

In terms of features, Hestia doesn’t have much to offer.

Well, they have some “okay” options in the customizer, combined with the fact that Hestia can work with most page builder plugins.

In terms of the cons:

  • I thought installing the extra plugin would give more firepower in the customizer settings — if it did, I didn’t notice.
  • They have just too few demo sites available, and all of them aren’t even that good (they look bare).

Some people may argue that the hooks and custom layouts feature make Hestia worth it.

That may be true for advanced users. Unfortunately, it’s likely that the majority of readers of this review post are beginners.

Reliability

I would rate its overall reliability at 4.3/5.

Here’s why:

  • Hestia's performance metrics, as evidenced by its GTmetrix scores, are outstanding (fully loaded time, total page size, and requests).
  • Although Hestia handles requests efficiently, reducing the number of requests could further optimize performance.
  • There is room for improvement in the setup wizard, particularly for beginners, making the theme more approachable and user-friendly.

While Hestia excels in speed and efficiency, there are areas for refinement, particularly in reducing the number of page requests and enhancing the setup wizard.

Performance

True to its theme family, Hestia is impressive in terms of performance. Its relatively small size contributes significantly to its speed.

To understand how Hestia fares in the real world and how it compares with other themes, we can use GTmetrix to test the theme's performance.

Here are the results:

hestia original demo site got an A gtmetrix grade with 93% performance
hestia original demo site fully loaded in 990 milliseconds

Warning: The results from GTmetrix aren’t conclusive and won’t always hold true as the themes continue to update. However, they are a good indication of the themes’ performance and speed insights.

Hestia scored a perfect 100% GTmetrix performance score — its fully loaded time is 990 ms, total page size is 797KB, while total page requests is 53.

Here's how Hestia compares with other themes:

ThemeFully Loaded TimeTotal Page SizeTotal Page Requests
Elementor Simple Kit1.3 seconds1.51 MB53
Astra Outdoor Adventure905 milliseconds1.54 MB21
Neve 3568 milliseconds137 KB18
Hestia Orignal990 milliseconds797 KB53

Here are some observations:

  • Hestia is definitely one of the fastest themes out there, with a fully loaded time of 990 milliseconds.
  • Hestia is relatively efficient in terms of the amount of data needed to load the page, which can contribute to faster load times and better performance.
  • While Hestia may require more requests to load all elements of the page, it is able to handle these requests efficiently to maintain a competitive load time.

👉 Related: Astra Theme Review: Popular Choice or Just Overhyped?

Updates and Maintenance

Just like the Neve theme, Hestia also receives regular updates and maintenance to ensure it remains reliable and efficient for users.

This commitment to regular updates and maintenance significantly contributes to its reliability and popularity.

Hestia's website and pro options offer a comprehensive changelog for users to troubleshoot issues and optimize theme features.

see hestia’s changelog with the recent verson 3.1.0

Here are some highlights from the changelog: 

  • Starting from version 3.1.0, the Hestia theme introduced a user-friendly setup wizard, simplifying theme setup for newcomers.
  • Regular updates have resolved issues like PHP errors with PHP 8.1, Lighthouse errors, and conflicts with image optimizer plugins.
  • Hestia now offers enhanced header customization options, mobile menu display, cart icon customization, and many more.

These updates enhance the theme's functionality and user experience, staying current with the latest web design trends and technologies.

👋 My thoughts here

Frankly, Hestia's performance has been quite impressive.

I already felt how fast it was while I was testing it out considering the installation file is light and has bare-bones features.

Here are some areas where Hestia shines and where it could use some improvement:

  • You can’t ignore the fast loading time, regular updates and maintenance, comprehensive changelog, and resolution of issues in the updates.
  • While Hestia is efficient in load times, it requires more requests to load all elements of the page.
  • Although the introduction of a user-friendly setup wizard in version 3.1.0 is a positive step, they could enhance the wizard further as I explained in the theme setup section.

Despite these minor issues, Hestia stands out as one of the top performers in terms of speed, performance, and regular updates/maintenance.

Support

I would rate its overall support at 3.8/5.

Here’s why:

  • The user-friendly guidance with images and step-by-step instructions makes installing, configuring, and customizing the theme a breeze.
  • Limited support hours and a 1-2 day response time for queries may be a drawback, especially for users in different time zones or with urgent needs.
  • While the documentation is comprehensive, it lacks depth in technical areas like hooks, which could be better served with more detailed examples and explanations.

Overall, the rating acknowledges Hestia's strong support system with multiple channels and comprehensive documentation, while also noting potential improvement.

Customer Service

Hestia provides a satisfactory customer service experience, offering multiple channels for users to ask questions and understand how the theme works.

To access these options, navigate to pro options > support on your admin dashboard and you will find the following customer service options:

  • Documentation
  • Contact support
  • Facebook group
  • Support forum
all the available support options of the hestia theme

First, let's discuss the community aspect.

Hestia's Facebook group, similar to Neve's, is a place where users can interact, ask questions, and share their experiences.

The number of members (3,300 members) and the frequency of new posts (5 posts in the last month) may vary, but it's a valuable resource for users.

hestia community on facebook with 3.3k members

Those numbers are not a lot though, which can be attributed to the number of sales Hestia got compared to bigger, more popular themes.

Hestia also maintains a presence in the WordPress support forum, where they answer questions from users.

While there may be a few unanswered questions, the majority of queries are addressed, indicating a strong commitment to user support.

hestia’s support forum in wordpress

When you click the contact support button from the support page, you will be directed to the Themeisle contact page.

You can describe your issue in detail on this page — although their support hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EEST.

themeisle’s contact page with details on support hours and response time

While they don't offer round-the-clock support, they do commit to responding within 1-2 days for the best solution (this is from their support form page).

Overall, Hestia provides a range of customer service options to ensure users have the support they need to make the most of the theme.

Knowledge Base

Hestia's documentation is comprehensive and user-friendly.

It provides a wealth of information about the theme, including how to install and configure it, customize its options, and use its features.

Here’s what it looks like:

hestia’s documentation on customizing big title bg options

The documentation is well-structured and includes images and step-by-step instructions to guide users through various processes.

In the upper-left corner, you will notice a search function that automatically suggests pages based on your query.

While Hestia doesn't have a Codex like Neve does, it does provide information about available hooks and a visual doc for the locations.

For the hook locations, this is what you get:

a visual doc of all the locations of the main hooks of the hestia theme

As for the hook documentation, it’s not as powerful as the Codex Neve where you can see various information about that hook.

Hestia provides a comprehensive set of documentation and resources to help users understand and utilize the theme effectively.

👋 My thoughts here

Hestia, like Neve, offers a variety of customer service channels. But there are areas where improvements could be made to enhance the support experience for users.

Here's what they can do better:

  • Expanding the support hours and providing quicker responses would improve the support for users across different time zones and those with urgent issues.
  • A larger, more active community can provide richer peer support and a more dynamic exchange of ideas and solutions.
  • Improving the documentation on hooks with more detailed examples and explanations would better serve advanced users who wish to customize the theme extensively.

Hestia's support system is robust, with multiple channels and comprehensive documentation.

However, there is room for improvement in support hours, community engagement, and technical documentation for advanced theme customization.

Pricing

I would rate its overall pricing at 3.9/5.

Here’s why:

  • Hestia's pricing structure is inclusive and caters to a broad spectrum of users, from personal website creators to business and agency users.
  • The lack of some premium features like white label and priority support in lower-tier plans can be seen as a limitation.
  • While the pricing tiers are competitive, the potential for more customized plans could cater to users who fall between the personal and business categories.

The rating reflects the competitive pricing and the value offered across its various plans.

It also takes into account the potential for more flexibility in the inclusion of premium features in lower-tier plans and the introduction of more customized pricing options.

Cost Breakdown

Hestia offers a flexible pricing structure that caters to a variety of user needs, from personal websites to business and agency-level requirements.

Currently, Hestia has three pricing tiers:

  1. Personal ($69/year)
  2. Business ($99/year)
  3. Agency ($299/year)
hestia theme’s pricing plans as of today

Here's a table that summarizes what each plan or tier includes:

FeaturePersonalBusinessAgency
Unlimited Sites UsageYesYesYes
Extended Header OptionsYesYesYes
Extended Footer OptionsYesYesYes
More Blog SettingsYesYesYes
Extra Frontpage SectionsYesYesYes
Custom Layouts BuilderYesYesYes
Extra WooCommerce FeaturesYesYesYes
Enhanced Translation CompatibilityYesYesYes
All Premium Starter SitesNoYesYes
White LabelNoNoYes
Live Chat & Priority SupportNoNoYes
Money Back Guarantee30-day30-day30-day
Price$69/year$99/year$299/year

It's worth noting that the free version of Hestia is usable for building a high-quality website using a page builder.

However, upgrading to the pro version unlocks the additional features and functionalities that can enhance your site.

Money Back Guarantee/Refund

Hestia offers a money-back guarantee for all pricing plans.

If you're unsatisfied, you can request a refund within the first 30 days after purchase — though refund requests might be denied if they're deemed fraudulent or unfair.

how to request a refund documentation of the neve theme

This guarantee allows you to try out the theme and its various features without any risk.

If you find that the theme does not meet your expectations or requirements within the first 30 days of purchase, you can request a full refund.

Some important notes here:

  • Once a refund has been processed, it might take up to 7-10 days for the amount to get transferred to the user's account.
  • The company does not cover any differences in exchange rates between the time of purchase and the time of refund.

👋 My thoughts here

Hestia's pricing structure offers a good balance of affordability and feature-rich plans.

However, there are areas where it could improve to provide even better value for its users.

Here are some of those areas:

  • Including some premium features like white label and priority support in the lower-tier plans for those who may not need the full capabilities of the agency plan.
  • Introducing more pricing tiers or a customizable plan could cater to a broader range of users (like a freelancer's plan for those who need a mix of personal and business).

While Hestia's pricing is competitive and offers good value, these improvements could make it even more appealing to a wider range of users.

After all, Hestia's 30-day money-back guarantee across all pricing plans provides a risk-free opportunity for users to try the theme.

Final Thoughts

Your decision to choose Hestia should be based on whether its core features align with your website goals and technical comfort level.

If you want a theme that's easy to set up, performs well, and provides basic to moderate customization options with reliable support, it’s an excellent choice.

The 30-day money-back guarantee offers a risk-free opportunity to explore the theme's capabilities and ensure it fits your requirements.

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About the author
Alan Anthony Catantan
Alan Anthony Catantan
Welcome to Darrel Wilson's corner of the web! While he's the genius behind this blog and YouTube channels, I'm the fun sidekick ensuring everything's in tip-top shape. From writing articles to video magic, we deliver content with a splash of fun! 🚀📝🎬

Hestia WordPress Theme

Overall rating
3.6/5
(3.6)
Pros
  • Ease of installation
  • Performance
  • Compatibility with page builders
  • User-friendly customizer
  • Regular updates and maintenance
  • Documentation and support
  • Flexible pricing tiers
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
  • Limited advanced customization
  • Fewer demo sites
  • Manual pro version installation
  • Limited support hours
  • Lack of advanced features in lower tiers
  • Higher page requests

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