GeneratePress Review

This GeneratePress review will explain who should choose GeneratePress and what the plus and minus points are.

The main reason people choose GeneratePress is to build web pages that compete with Elementor, but also have lightweight fast loading code.

GeneratePress is a great choice for small agencies, freelance web designers, and enthusiastic amateurs

It helps you build good quality websites quickly, cheaply and on a tight budget.

GeneratePress has a sister product called GenerateBlocks, to build your website you need GeneratePress and the free version of GenerateBlocks.

View the GeneratePress site library.

Other products people consider before buying Generate Press are…

In this GeneratePress review I’ll explain that there are many other similar themes and plugins, but in this GeneratePress review I’m giving my opinion of GeneratePress in comparison to Divi, Elementor & Beaver Builder.

A good website needs good content, but it also needs…

Great designs with light code

The main reason most people buy GeneratePress is because it enables them to build website layouts that compete with Elementor, Divi, or Beaver Builder, but without the bloated code. This can give you slightly faster page load times, which Google and your site visitors love.

This GeneratePress review recommends GeneratePress because…

GeneratePress is minimalist, powerful & competitively priced

GeneratePress does not include sliders, accordions, or other fancy effects although it does have readymade layouts via the site library. The premium version of GenerateBlocks includes templates and fancy hover effects, but not as many as Elementor provides.

However, GeneratePress costs a fraction of the price an Elementor subscription, especially if you want to use it on several websites.

You need GeneratePress and the free version of GenerateBlocks

To style the header, footer, and sidebar areas in GeneratePress you need an additional plugin, GenerateBlocks. Although you can use GeneratePress without GenerateBlocks I don’t recommend it. Even if you want to use your favorite page builder such as Beaver Builder to build the content area of your web pages, I still recommend you install the free version of GenerateBlocks alongside GeneratePress.

One of the key takeaways from this GeneratePress review is that you also need the free version of GenerateBlocks.

Sliders not included

GeneratePress enables you to build page layouts that compete with page builders like Elementor but GeneratePress outputs much lighter code, which can help make your web pages load faster. This lightweight code is one of the main reasons web designers use GeneratePress.

One of the ways GeneratePress keeps the code light is by not including fancy features that you might not need, such as sliders and accordions. If you need fancy features, GeneratePress works well with good quality plugins. So, you can install the specific plugins that you need without your website being bloated by features you don’t need.

If you do need a slider, SmartSlider3 is a good free option.

WordPress is changing fast

Bear in mind that WordPress has changed greatly over the last three years and now includes full site editing as part of the default Twenty Twenty-Two theme.

There’s a lot of inertia behind classic themes that use the WordPress customizer. However, the need for page builders will reduce as more full site editing themes become available.

Another important point in this GeneratePress review is that if you maintain websites using Elementor, you’ll have to pay to keep your subscription for legacy websites until you move away from Elementor, which might be several years in the future. The numbers soon add up especially if you maintain more than 100 websites using Elementor, in which case your Elementor subscription would be $999 each year for the foreseeable future.

Using Elementor on a few of your own websites is expensive but using Elementor on a single website is reasonably affordable.

However, if you’re charging for website maintenance the money you receive for maintaining those websites should more than pay for your subscription.

The two camps

Do you prefer…

1. Clean code and fast download times. Or…
2. Ready made templates, fancy effects but slower page load times.

In other words, if you’re willing to put more effort into building a good quality fast loading website, GeneratePress might be the choice for you. If you just want to import a template then change the text, and you don’t mind if your site loads a bit slower, Elementor might suit you better.

Also, GeneratePress claims to be the first full site editing theme on the market.

Themes like Divi offer more one click layouts but they can make your site load more slowly.

GeneratePress and Elementor are not the best choice for complete WordPress newbies. If you are brand new to WordPress and have no idea how WordPress works I’d recommend a much simpler theme, such as the default WordPress theme Twenty Twenty.

Is code bloat a price worth paying for Elementor?

If you have a small website on good quality hosting, Elementor’s slower page load speed might not bother you. Especially if you care more about fancy affects than you care about a fast loading website.

However, if you’ve got cheap hosting and a lot of website visitors, a slow website is a big problem.

GeneratePress is made from 4 parts

This is an important point in this GeneratePress review, the four parts are…

• GeneratePress free theme
• GeneratePress premium plugin
• GenerateBlocks free plugin
• GenerateBlocks premium plugin (optional extra)

The sites in the GeneratePress theme library use the premium GeneratePress plugin, and the free version of GenerateBlocks.

GenerateBlocks free & pro

There are two versions of GenerateBlocks, most people use the free version. If you do use GenerateBlocks premium plugin you get templates, useful extra functionality, and some fancy hover effects etc. The premium version of GenerateBlocks is a nice to have optional extra.

Full Site Editing

GeneratePress gives you a full site editing experience but in a slightly different way to how a true block theme works. If you’re not sure what that means, don’t worry. Just understand that when using the premium version of GeneratePress you can edit all areas of your website using a WYSIWYG block editor.

You can use blocks to design and build your header, sidebars, footer, and content area.

Block theme is a new term that describes a specific type of WordPress theme. Technically, GeneratePress is not a block theme and the way you edit the full site is not the same as editing the default WordPress Twenty Twenty-Two theme, which was the first Block theme made by WordPress. This is a transition period in WordPress history, block themes and full site editing are in their infancy. But GeneratePress already has most of the features WordPress are working towards with Full site editing.

In this GeneratePress review I set out to discover…

Who is GeneratePress for?

It’s for people who…

• want a fast loading website
• are competent WordPress users
• care about quality code
• want to build a better quality website

You don’t need to know code to use GeneratePress, but it is even better if you have a very basic understanding of how HTML, PHP, and CSS work.

GeneratePress users want as much control of their website, layout, and design as possible, without having to write custom code themselves.

If you’re willing to forgo the ease and simplicity of drag and drop page builders, spending a little extra time and effort building your site in return for a better finished product you’ll love GeneratePress.

GeneratePress helps you build a site layout and design that competes with a site built using a page builder, but the code is cleaner, and the page weight is lighter.

You’re also less locked into a specific theme than you have been with themes like Divi in the past. This is a bit of a misnomer in the modern Gutenberg world. Few themes are easy to escape from now. However, because you build your content area using GenerateBlocks you can in theory switch themes but keep GenerateBlocks and keep the content area of your site intact. This is not always as easy as it sounds.

GeneratePress cons

Modern page builders such as Beaver Builder and Elementor do add a lot of code to your website, but with reasonably priced web hosting that extra bloat does not slow your page down too much. Also, page builders can make building complicated page grids and layouts easy once you’ve mastered them.

So, depending on your like or dislike of page builders you might like or dislike GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Elements are a slightly advanced feature

You don’t need to use them, but they are very powerful if you do choose to use them.

Elements enable you to build your own headers, footers, and custom sidebars. You don’t need to write the code for elements, but if you understand what the code is doing, you’ll find it much easier to understand how elements work.

GeneratePress websites can have 4 parts

To get the most from GeneratePress you might want to install four products. Two of those are premium products, this can be confusing.

1. First you install GeneratePress which is a free theme .
2. Then you install a premium plugin that adds the site library and extra settings to the free theme.
3. Next you need to install GenerateBlocks free plugin which gives most people all the grid and layout options they need.
4. Finally, if you want even more options for styling your page layouts you can buy a second plugin that includes templates and hover effects.

Installing these four products is easy once you understand what needs to be done. Most people use the premium version of GeneratePress with the free version of GenerateBlocks.

It takes time to learn

This is a key GeneratePress review point.

If you only have one website and want the easiest way to get that site online, start with one of the easy install starter sites from the site library. Then swap out the demo content for your own.

However, to get the most from GeneratePress you need to spend time learning how to use it. If you’re a freelance web designer this is time well spent and you’ll make good use of your new skills on all the websites you build with GeneratePress in future.

GeneratePress tech support

Tech support is both a plus and a minus. You can read comprehensive documentation on the GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks websites. And you can use support tickets to get incredibly detailed help from the experts about your specific GeneratePress site building problems.

However, there’s no simple newbie guide for people who are brand new to WordPress. This is another reason GeneratePress is more suitable for experienced WordPress users.

GeneratePress is barebones but powerful.

GeneratePress combined with GenerateBlocks gives you most of the power of a drag and drop page builder but with less code bloat. However, GeneratePress does not have the drag and drop simplicity, to get the same results as you’d get from a page builder you’ll have to do more work.

But you’ll end up with a cleaner website that loads faster.

Newbies use the site library

This is a very important GeneratePress review finding!

If you’re new to GeneratePress you’ll probably build your first website using the site library.

Once you learn how to use GenerateBlocks you can make almost any layout yourself, but that takes time.

However, if you buy the premium version of GenerateBlocks in addition to the Premium version of GeneratePress you get access to a library of page sections that you can add to any page of your website with one click.

Themes in the GeneratePress library.