Ease of Use
I would rate the overall ease of use of GeneratePress as 3.5/5.
Here’s why:
- GeneratePress employs a modular approach, enabling users to activate only the features they need.
- The absence of a theme setup wizard or guided functionality is a significant drawback, particularly for beginners.
- Some users might prefer having all features activated by default and then choosing to deactivate the unnecessary ones.
This rating reflects a theme that is manageable for most users but could benefit from improvements in guiding new users through the setup process.
Installation Process
GeneratePress follows the free theme-pro plugin pattern, where you need to install a separate plugin for the pro version.
To get started, you will have to go through the normal process of installing a theme to your website from the repository:
- Go to appearance > themes > add new
- Search for the GeneratePress theme
- Install and activate the theme
This will then give you access to the features of the free version, which unfortunately isn’t really that great as it only gives you a basic setup.
For the pro version (you need to purchase GeneratePress premium), you need to download the pro add-on plugin first from your account.
Then all you need to do is install the plugin:
- Go to plugins > add new plugin > upload plugin
- Browse through your files and select the plugin
- Click the install now button
Like other themes that follow this pattern, you need the plugin since it contains the core GeneratePress theme features.
One of the things I like about GeneratePress is that it doesn’t bother you or force you to activate the premium theme right away.
In fact, you can even leave it as it is and all the premium features will still work — but if you don’t register it, you also won’t get future updates.
To enter the license key:
- Find and copy the license key from your GP account
- Go to appearance > GeneratePress
- Enter your license key in the field provided
Click the save key and you’re good to go:
If the license key is valid, the notification at the top of the license key field will return “Receiving premium updates.”
Theme Setup
Unlike other themes, GeneratePress has no theme setup wizard or functionality that works you through setting up the theme.
⚠️ Note: From henceforth, I’ll be calling GeneratePress “GP” since typing the whole name is a bit mouthful (or typeful, since I’m typing this). 😅
GP is also a member of what I want to call the “manual themes club” since you have to enable the modules yourself.
You can find the GeneratePress premium modules by going to appearance > GP and activating all the modules that you want to use:
⚠️ Note: The WooCommerce module will stay locked (grayed out) until you install the WooCommerce plugin.
Honestly, why don’t these themes just activate these features or modules first and then have the user deactivate those that he/she won’t be using? 🤷
If you scroll a little bit, you will get to a section where you can open the options for different site settings like site identity and color options.
I thought they were special theme options — but they’re basically just shortcuts to those site settings in the theme customizer.
On the bright side, I like the fact that you can import and export customizer settings easily — saves a lot of time if you’re creating another similar site.
By the way, after you activate the different modules and then restart the page, different sections will start appearing on the GP theme page under the appearance section.
👋 My thoughts here
Besides the fact that you need to install a separate plugin for the premium features, the installation and setup are fairly straightforward.
Here’s a summary of what I think:
- It’s good that GP uses a modular approach to its features. But I wish that they activated all the features first instead of the other way around.
- GP lets you import and export customizer settings easily — and that’s a check on my list as it saves a lot of time when you need to set up an identical site.
- Not having a theme setup wizard or functionality is a bit of a downer since it’s useful for newbies in guiding them through setting up the theme.
If we’re talking about the ease of use in installation and theme setup, GP is barely average — it’s not that bad, but it’s not that good either.
Features
I would rate the overall features of GeneratePress as 3.5/5.
Here’s why:
- GeneratePress offers a substantial collection of well-designed demo sites (around 100), which are particularly appealing to authors and bloggers.
- Although GeneratePress includes essential customizer settings, it falls short in comparison to other themes that offer more extensive options even in their free versions.
- While the element feature is beneficial for users avoiding complex page builders, its reliance on Gutenberg blocks limits the design possibilities.
GeneratePress has its strong points like an extensive range of demo sites and basic customization options.
The score also reflects the areas where it lags behind competitors, such as in the depth of customizer options and the limitations of its theme builder feature.
1. Live Customizer Options
During my early years of blogging, I had already heard of GeneratePress since some of the authors I’ve been following were using the theme.
So imagine my surprise when all I saw was this:
Besides the “standard” ones that you see, the only settings here that are a bit special are:
- Layout
- Colors
- Typography
- Background images
For the layout, you get options to change the container, header, primary navigation, sticky navigation, blog layout, etc.
With the blog layout, you can choose specific meta to show/hide and change some options for the featured images including the size.
I want to add that they have some header presets and related options — but they’re about layouts and not designs.
For the colors, I was a bit surprised as the theme allows you to change the color of almost any element on the site.
That includes the sidebar widgets and footer widgets, which I only saw once or twice (unfortunately, I can’t remember what those themes were).
GP did something different in typography. Initially, you would be able to see 2 options:
- Font manager
- Typography manager
How it works is that you need to add a font first via the font manager before you can apply it to a specific element using the typography manager.
It’s a little different, and I suspect it helps keep the theme file size down to keep the website speed up (though it’s not that intuitive).
On the bright side, I like the fact that you can target almost any text element on the website including off-canvas menu items.
The background images option is a little weird though since it basically allows you to add a background on different elements:
- Body
- Header
- Navigation
- Content
- Sidebar
- Footer
All in all, if I compare this to other themes, even free themes like Astra have more customizer options available than GeneratePress Pro.
👉 Related: Astra Theme Review: Popular Choice or Just Overhyped?
2. Elements (Theme Builder)
GeneratePress WordPress theme has a (sort of) theme builder where you can build different elements on a site using blocks without the need for any codes.
You can find it on appearance > elements > add new element:
From what you can see from the screenshot above, there are four elements you can create:
- Block
- Hook
- Layout
- Header
To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed here since on their website, they imply that the “options are endless” and you can create singe post templates to 404 pages.
From the type of elements, maybe you can do that using hooks, blocks, and layouts. Unfortunately, the actual work is more complicated than that.
Here’s the page that you will see when you opt to create a new block element:
GP recommended that I install their GenerateBlocks (free) plugin for more functionality, and I got six new blocks. 😓
GenerateBlocks has a pro version that starts from $39/year for one site and includes 200+ patterns (so I guess it’s a way to advertise this).
But to be fair, I like the display rules where you can add rules related to the location or placement, exclusion, and users.
👉 Related: How to Create a Custom WordPress Block Without (Much) Coding
Here’s what you see when you create a new header element:
I can see that GP’s element feature might help some users who don’t want to use page builders and their complexities.
Instead of a drag-and-drop feature to design new theme elements, there are clickable options and settings that are easy to understand.
But since they basically just ride in on what Gutenberg and its blocks can do, what you can do/design with them is also limited.
3. Demo Sites
The question now is — how good are the demo sites in GP? How many are there?
When I saw the demo sites, I kind of understood now why a lot of authors like using the GeneratePress theme.
To find them, go to appearance > GP > site library and you will see all the available demo sites:
There are a lot of them (around 100), and many of them fit what authors and bloggers are looking for in a demo site.
Quality-wise, the demo sites are well-designed (and I can certainly see the exact demo sites that some blogs and author sites are using).
Here’s one example:
If you want to use a demo site, simply click on it and you will be given a few options like whether or not to import theme options and demo content.
You also need to confirm your intention to import the demo site and that it will make changes to your website.
The process is fairly simple and easy to understand, though there are certainly some features that I wish GP had in terms of importing demo content.
For example, it would be cool if I could see what pages are included and if I could choose specific pages to import.
👋 My thoughts here
I feel that the strongest point of GP’s feature is the demo sites.
Since there is a lot to choose from, and most of them are great, there are only a few things you need to change on the site.
Unfortunately, I had to mention on this GeneratePress review the things that it should improve upon:
- More customization options
- More features in general
Although it’s true that once you find a demo site that’s closer to what you have in mind, you won’t need to change a lot of elements anymore.
However, that rarely happens, right? That’s why it would be better if GeneratePress added more customization options in the customizer.
In addition, having more features, especially those related to design, would make GP more worth it (and usable).
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Reliability
My rating for GP’s reliability is 4.4/5.
Here’s why:
- GeneratePress demonstrates excellent performance metrics, including a 100% page speed score with a minimal page size of just 7.5 KB for the free theme.
- While the theme is regularly updated to keep up with the latest WordPress versions, there have been some user reports of issues related to updating the theme.
- GeneratePress, despite having fewer features compared to some other themes, excels in web performance.
The score reflects GP’s excellent performance in speed and efficiency and continuous updates for compatibility.
However, the reported issues with the update process and the trade-off between features and performance slightly affect its reliability rating.
Performance
GeneratePress heavily advertises on their site how they have a 100% page speed score with just a 7.5 KB page size (for their free WordPress theme version).
To evaluate its performance and make comparisons with other themes, I installed the Info demo site and analyzed it using GTmetrix.
Here are the results:
True to its word — GP got an “A” grade in GTmetrix, with 94% in performance, and fully loaded in only 1.3 seconds.
That’s even better than I expected! 🎉
I imported the demo site that I showed you earlier, and it has a few images (though they are only thumbnails).
Let's take a look at how GeneratePress compares to other multipurpose WordPress themes that I’ve tested using GTmetrix:
Theme | Fully Loaded Time | Total Page Size | Total Page Requests |
Elementor Simple Kit | 1.3 seconds | 1.51 MB | 53 |
Elementor Pearl Kit | 3.7 seconds | 1.57 MB | 106 |
Betheme Default Template | 1.6 seconds | 0.97 MB | 55 |
Astra Outdoor Adventure | 905 milliseconds | 1.54 MB | 21 |
GeneratePress Info | 1.3 seconds | 719 KB | 17 |
Here are some comments:
- GeneratePress excels in web performance, loading in a swift 1.3 seconds, comparable to speedy themes like Elementor Simple Kit.
- In terms of total page size, GeneratePress is the winner, boasting a minimal footprint of just 719 KB, which is notably smaller than the other themes.
- GeneratePress excels in speed optimization, with a mere 17 total page requests (this optimization is vital for SEO and user experience).
Despite its few features, if you're aiming for a theme that offers both speed and efficiency, GeneratePress is a strong contender.
Its performance metrics, particularly in terms of load time and page size, are ideal for anyone looking to optimize their site for speed and user experience.
Updates and Maintenance
Despite not having that many features, GeneratePress is one of the popular WordPress themes (again, I had already heard of it when I started blogging).
Fortunately, GeneratePress is continuously updated to ensure compatibility with the latest WordPress versions.
You can check its changelog here:
Here are some highlights from the changelog:
- There’s an update that introduced several features focused on enhancing the site library (like the ability to search within the library and improved overall filters).
- GP has an update that emphasizes security with a feature disallowing scripts in custom field template tags.
- An update introduced the search modal element type, improving the search functionality within websites and fixing some integration issues.
These updates highlight GeneratePress's dedication to security, user accessibility, and compatibility with modern web technologies.
👋 My thoughts here
Without a doubt, GP has a solid performance, supported by excellent performance metrics as you can see from the screenshot earlier.
It also has no problems with updates since it’s continuously updated to ensure compatibility with the latest WordPress versions.
While reading the theme’s documentation, I saw that they included a section on manually updating the theme.
Did a quick search about it and learned that some users have reported issues related to updating the theme.
It’s not really that a “break dealer issue” since you can just download an updated GP premium plugin — but it’s certainly a hassle.
Support
I would rate the overall support of GeneratePress as 4/5.
Here’s why:
- GP is known for its effective customer service, with a high level of responsiveness to queries on its forums.
- The absence of phone or chat support and no 24/7 support availability can be a limitation for users who prefer real-time assistance or need immediate help.
- GeneratePress provides extensive and well-written documentation, covering a wide range of topics with supporting images and videos.
This rating suggests that while GeneratePress provides robust and responsive support through traditional channels:
There is room for improvement in offering more immediate support options and enhancing social media engagement.
Customer Service
How well does GP handle its customer service? Are there a lot of places where you can ask for help?
Thankfully, GeneratePress is known for its good customer service, with a shortcut right inside the theme settings page:
This will bring you to the main support page of the GeneratePress website, where you can see different customer service options:
- GenerateSupport forum
- WordPress forum
- Contact form
- Documentation
GeneratePress is generally responsive to customer queries.
For example, checking over their WordPress forum, almost all posts have answers from GP, and those answers aren’t generic either.
I can see that they hired someone to handle the questions in the forum and the community is responsive as well.
A quick visit to their GenerateSupport forum showed a similar pattern (though all posts have comments), with the same person answering the queries.
While they lack phone support, they offer email assistance where responses are typically provided on the same day (according to users), often within a few hours.
Well, that probably has something to do with the fact that email assistance is specific to account/billing issues and pre-sale questions. 😅
Overall, customer service is robust in many ways, particularly in responsiveness and the provision of comprehensive resources.
But it does have areas for improvement, such as the absence of phone support and social media channels (they have a page though).
Documentation
GeneratePress is also doing well in the area of documentation.
Similar to the link to the support page, you can also find a button right inside the admin dashboard that will take you to the documentation page.
This will take you to the home page of the documentation subsite where you can find the pages divided into 4 categories:
- General
- Customization
- Modules
- Developers
They have a vast range of topics in the documentation, from installation to hooks to beta testing (in fact, they probably covered every nook and corner of the using theme).
As for the quality of the documentation pages, they are written well, with images and videos (some) that support the content.
Here’s an example:
Some of the pages, especially those specific to developers and those that are self-explanatory, don’t have any images.
They also have a search functionality built into every page in the documentation, which makes finding specific posts easy.
👋 My thoughts here
GeneratePress has a lot of plus points in the support section, with their quick and effective responses to customer queries.
They also provide extensive documentation that covers a wide range of topics with well-written articles.
Despite that, there are still a lot of things they could improve upon:
- No phone/chat support
- No 24/7 support
- Limited social media support
Well, not having phone or chat support is probably tied up with not having any 24/7 personnel to handle the support.
This could be a limitation for users who prefer to discuss their issues over a call or chat or those who need immediate support.
For social media, they do have a Facebook page —but they don’t seem to actively reply to customers' comments there.
Pricing
I would rate the overall pricing of GeneratePress as 3.5/5.
Here’s why:
- GeneratePress offers flexible pricing with both annual and one-time payment options, catering to different user needs and budgets.
- Considering its features, the yearly cost may not align well with the value provided, especially when compared to other themes with more features.
- While GP recommends pairing with GenerateBlocks, the need to potentially purchase a pro version can add to the total cost.
The theme is moderately priced with customer-friendly policies.
However, there are considerations for the overall value provided in terms of features and the necessity of additional purchases for full functionality.
Cost Breakdown
GeneratePress offers a pricing structure that caters to a wide range of users, from beginners to advanced webmasters.
They offer two versions:
- Free
- Premium
The premium version has an annual plan that costs $59/year and they also have a one-time payment option for $249.
In terms of differences between the pricing plans, there’s no difference at all (the updates and premium support are there as long as you pay).
In the features section, I also mentioned that GP recommends installing the GenerateBlocks plugin, though they only provide the free version.
But GB has a pro version too:
In case you want to know how it differs:
- While not required, pairing GB with GP is recommended for those using the native WordPress block editor.
- The free version of GB should suffice for most users, especially if they’ve already purchased GP Premium.
- GB Pro is available at $39 for use on a single site for extended capabilities for those needing more advanced block functionalities.
Money Back Guarantee/Refund
GeneratePress offers a simple and customer-friendly refund policy.
If you're unsatisfied with the GeneratePress theme, you can request a full refund within 30 days of your purchase.
This 30-day period starts from your initial purchase date. To request a refund, you can contact GeneratePress through their contact form.
Once the refund is issued, it may take about 5-10 days for the refund to reflect in your account, depending on your financial institution.
Please note that this refund policy excludes license renewals, subsequent purchases after a refund, and any refund requests beyond the initial 30 days of the original purchase.
👋 My thoughts here
In general, GeneratePress has “okay” pricing with its annual/one-time payment models and its strong refund policy.
However, I would like to point out 2 things:
- Price to features
- GenerateBlocks Pro
The yearly cost is $59, which doesn’t seem big — unfortunately, for the features that GP has, I don’t think that price is worth it.
Not to add, you might have to buy the GenerateBlocks Pro too if you want to make use of the theme builder functionality.
Final Thoughts
GeneratePress excels in performance, user-focused support, and a flexible pricing model that suits a wide range of users.
While excelling in fast loading times, regular updates, and a generous refund policy, there's clear room for improvement.
To enhance GeneratePress, it could improve the beginner's user experience, expand the free version's features, and offer quicker support options.
These enhancements could establish GeneratePress as both a reliable, efficient theme and an intuitive, comprehensive solution for users of all levels of expertise.
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