Which one is faster? Which one is better?
Let’s settle the debate once and for all.
Which one is faster?
- GeneratePress because it allows you to do more things without a pagebuilder or other [bloated] plugins.
- Sure, Astra may be more lightweight in terms of having less code. But when that comes at the expense of having less features/functions, you’ll likely end up installing more plugins to have those functions! (Astra is still a good theme, btw. No stress if you have it.)
Which one is better?
- I don’t know about you but Tom Usborne has done more than just GeneratePress. He’s built some really awesome plugins that are available free to the community.
- Check them out: GenerateBlocks, Social Icons, Simple CSS, Grid Columns, WP Show Posts.
- Incredible work. And please keep in mind that I’m a diehard Genesis guy and yet still won over by GeneratePress. Those 2 themes are similar but completely different in user demographic and community culture.
“But isn’t GeneratePress made by only one guy, while Astra is backed by a whole team?“
Honestly, I feel like I trust it even more for being made by one guy. Just for the record, GeneratePress has been around a lot longer. And (IMO) was modeled after another favorite theme of mine (Genesis). Astra barely showed up on the scene like 2-3 years ago whereas GeneratePress has been around since 5-6 years ago.
I love that GP’s creator, Tom Usborne, mostly focuses on his theme and not much else. His other projects/product also integrate very well with his theme and everything is either FREE or very reasonably-priced for the paid version. You’re supporting one man. And he supports you.
But what about Astra. Well, they make a theme…they also make a conversion plugin, an SEO plugin, pagebuilder add-ons, a portfolio thing. Hmmm…that isn’t quite the same as one man’s passion for a clean/lightweight WordPress theme. It sounds more like a business. With employees, and plans to grow their profits. And you know what the issue is with companies that chase the dollar? They cater to the mainstream.
And I’m sorry but I don’t want what the mainstream wants. I don’t want BS flashy effects and trendy gimmicky ugly design crap on my sites. I’m too mature, too experienced for that. I’m not better-than-thou. I just have a different taste from what the crowd likes.
I’m willing to bet that despite having more resources (money & personnel), Astra will lose focus on their Astra theme far sooner than Tom will on his GP theme. Astra will move on to the next shiny business plan whereas Tom will not. In fact, it’s already happened. I hear of bug complaints with Astra all the time and never with GP.
“But Astra is more popular and has more downloads.”
Popularity is a correlation of commonality, not quality. Why is it more popular? Who knows. Maybe because it’s better-marketed. Maybe because it caters better to the mainstream crowd that doesn’t know any better.
Or maybe…it actually is better! Ha, just kidding. It’s not and here’s why…
GeneratePress has a higher-skilled user-base/community than Astra
And I don’t mean to offend anyone, but there are definitely more experienced developers and sitebuilders in GP’s community than in Astra’s community. I’ve also heard some critiques about both themes from developers. GP’s critique by one developer friend of mine was that he disagreed with how one small part of it was coded (I’m sorry for not remembering the detail). Astra’s critique by another respected friend of mine was that he couldn’t stand working with it at all. Felt it wasn’t built logically, and not following typical WordPress logic.
“But Astra has tons of big name WordPress guys singing their praises…Chris Lema, WPCrafters.”
ARGHHHH!!!….don’t make me go there. A good chunk of them are famous WordPress teachers. Good at public-speaking, making Youtube videos, or blogging to help newbies. Some of them are agency owners that develop sites for clients.
But are any of them a senior developers building mission-critical plugins, or contributing daily to WordPress core code? I shall whisper silently into your ear…*NO!*
Hey, I don’t have any issues with a product built for newbies to make sites for clients. But it’s still good to know what a true code-from-scratch developer thinks of a theme, right?
And more so than that, who’s opinion do you value more?
- The person who’s main business is developing [highend] client sites all day long?
- Or the person who’s main business is teaching others how to make WordPress sites?
Well said, I think I`m starting to like you more and more, your one of the guys that starting to `get-it .. Have a great evening .. =)
Thanks Leif. 🙂
100% agree. Happy GP user here…
Furthermore, for people that never use gadgets like builders or blocks GP is really heaven on server!
Absolutely! So clean and super-smooth. I love it.
Agreed, really fast!
I share your concerns about the Astra ecosystem. As far as I can tell the parent company started out building modules for the Beaver Builder page builder (Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder.) Then, I think, came the Astra theme which was also initially proposed for Beaver Builder. But then they branched out and started cooking UA addons for Elementor, then Gutenberg, and for all I know Visual Composer.) The result is a lack of focus, a tendency to homogenize their UIs resulting in platform incompatibilities, a tendency to significantly lag new developments in their respective platforms, etc.)
That’s not to say they’re bad people! Their offerings are useful and complex. Anyone who thinks an addon pack for Gutenberg was a trivial undertaking just months after the GB code was finalized is probably mistaken.
But! Yeah, I’m always going to prefer someone who picks a target area and sticks with it.
As an all Beaver Builder shop, I keep coming back to the “captive” Beaver Builder theme, which is Good Enough and also obviously focused on BB compatibility. But I’ve purchased GeneratePress on your recommendation (and the recommendation of others) and may cheerfully switch once I wrap my head around its approach.
Ahhh. Thanks for the insight, David. I’m not surprised at all. They seem to me as the type of development company that copies the market rather than creating the market. They’re not bad people at all. I’ve spoken to some of their head devs about bugs and such. I just wish they had a little more personality in in how they create their products. Don’t just try to make things for people; try to change the way people work. But regardless, they have many fans so I guess they’re successful exactly the way they want to be.
Completely agreed with you and your opinions on GeneratePress.
I have previously been working with Elegant Themes (which I hated).
Once I started learning more about WordPress development and web development in general, I noticed how incredibly powerful GeneratePress is.
I’ve switched all my sites I’m developing to GeneratePress because of the speed, support, light weight, but also the flexibility of customising it without any crappy bloat.
Thanks a lot for your amazing content J.
Take care
That’s great news, Marcus. Music to my ears. I hope more word about GP gets out as they deserve all the fanfare they can get.
Johnny I see you’re raving about GeneratePress lately. How does it compare to Genesis tho in your opinion? I paid for the lifetime Genesis package long ago (got all the child themes), but I have no problem changing if GenPress is better.
Check out my GeneratePress vs Genesis Theme Review, Regev! Both are still great. Pick the one that fits more of your skill and workflow style.
It’s a bit risky to rely on a theme that is built by a single person as your only an accident away from a development team of 1 to that of 0.
May that not happen but if it did… who’s to take the reigns for the theme and what is their skill level?
For this reason, I tend to go with more established providers who have products with larger install bases (large install bases provide insurance against a theme becoming abandon-ware).
Although Avada is bulky and slow under certain conditions, a strong selling point is the huge install base. If someone using Avada has a problem, it’s probable they will find others with similar problems… so user to user support is more likely to occur with a large install base.
Regarding Astra, it has a lot going for it beyond just being blazing fast. Many web developers don’t want all the bells and whistles like Avada provides, so Astra may make a lot of sense to them and it too enjoys a large install base.
I don’t have anything against GeneratePress as I’ve never used it. However, I usually build a short-list of themes I may use on a project and a fair amount of weight is placed on the likelihood a theme will continue to receive updates for a considerable length of time. The other is the likelihood of user to user support happening if its’ needed.
Logical in theory but flawed in practice. Big development teams often abandon their products to chase new business segments elsewhere. Tom has consistently updated GeneratePress for 10 years now. But you’re welcome to choose what you feel is best for you. GP has been around long and has a much happier fanbase. Astra attained great success in only 2-3 years and now already suffering a fallout. But again…choose what you like best. I’m speaking only from experience.
We all have opinions. I, too, am speaking from experience albeit my own.
I don’t recall many successful software products that were abandoned by their ‘big development teams’ in order to chase after new business elsewhere. Possibly there are a few but I doubt it’s ‘often’.
In fact, is it not usually the other way around where software with large development teams, huge install bases and vibrant communities take a very long time to go away e.g., Flash Player from Adobe is STILL around after the most influential and powerful CEO in technology (at the time) publicly called it out. Chrome will finally drop support at the end of this year… over a decade later!
Why is Outlook still around? Why is Yahoo! still around? Why is the Avada theme still around? Is it because those software and service offerings are much better than anything else available?
It’s not because Outlook is the best way to manage email or Yahoo! the best search or Avada the best theme but rather those software and services still exist because they have massive install bases which prevent them from simply ‘going away’ even WHEN a company WANTS a product to die e.g., MS is still trying to convince people to stop using IE. Don’t even get me started with AOL!!!
Please don’t misunderstand me. I love the little guy! In fact, some of my favorite pieces of software have been developed by individuals or very small teams who are absolute artisans in their trades e.g., REAPER (the DAW) by Justin Frankel, SpinRite by Steve Gibson, Napster by Shawn Fanning, Craft CMS by Brandon Kelly and the original JWPlayer by Jeroen Wijering to name a few.
However, it can be a little nerve-wracking to invest a fair amount of money and time in products that may simply ‘go away’ because their small development teams lose interest, die or are bought up by huge corporate entities who inevitably steer the product in a totally different direction, all too often, ruining it in the process. The JWPlayer, Napster and eBays of today are nothing like their earlier elegant software forefathers!
Do you really think it’s more likely that Avada and Astra could become abandoneware over GeneratePress? Tom isn’t immortal, is he? If so, I apologize and will now go and crawl back under my rock.
Ok…I don’t want to get into any argument. I get it, you disagree based on your personal experience. So I’ll simply state this concretely (and whether you agree or disagree, doesn’t matter to me):
– GP – has been around nearly 10 years I feel. Has raving reviews and I can honestly say it legitimately offers a superior UX over Astra.
– Astra – been out around 3 years. Tons of complaints, bugs, etc throughout its short time.
– AVADA – is one of the most made-fun-of themes by professional developers. And many newly-informed newbies switching away from it every year.
For the kinds of WordPress projects and clients I deal with most, AVADA absolutely sucks. One of the worst most bloated crap themes out there. GeneratePress is one of my favorites.
“I don’t recall many successful software products that were abandoned by their ‘big development teams’ in order to chase after new business elsewhere. Possibly there are a few but I doubt it’s ‘often’.”
– Sounds to me you haven’t followed software development world for very long. But anyway, that’s another debate for another time.
– Best of luck to you. Regardless of my opinion, you should use whatever theme you like best. No need to justify or rationalize.
Johnny have you tried Carbonate? It’s some serious stuff dude, definately checkout. https://www.buycarbonate.com/ ; I use GP, always been a huuggeee fan, but this is something different. Do check out
I have never seen that theme before and can tell you that I don’t like it already. Indeed it is lightweight but many little things about it (and its website) looks unprofessional or unpolished.