GeneratePress Review 2024

by Adam Preiser updated Feb 23, 2024

GeneratePress is a lightweight theme that can be extended with a premium pack of extensions. It will work with all page builders and has the most extensive documentation of any theme.

Current Pricing: Free to $59
Ease of Use

Ease Of Use

8/10

GeneratePress is easy to use but the options could be modernized and better organized.

Price Value Icon

Price / Value

9/10

The free version is more of a demo with limited options, but the Pro has most of what you would need.

Reliability

Support

10/10

GeneratePress is very cognizant of supporting their customers and users and people seem to love it.

GeneratePress Pros

  • Theme Truly Built For Performance
  • Developers Love The Hooks & Filters
  • People Love Their Support
  • Extensive Documentation

GeneratePress Cons

  • Skip The Free Version, It’s Very Limited
  • Opinionated On What a Theme Should Do
  • Not As Many 3rd Party Integrations Or Options
  • Some Parts Feel Dated, It’s a 6 Year Old Theme

GeneratePress Coupon Discounts

There are currently no active GeneratePress Coupon or GeneratePress Discounts available.

GeneratePress Review: Wrap Up

GeneratePress is a rock-solid choice for you to build your website on. Many highly experienced developers use GeneratePress for all of their projects.

Now the free version is not that great. I am not trying to knock the theme, but the options are very limited, I don’t think anyone would argue on that point. You could make a very basic site with the free version, but most use GeneratePress for their Pro version.

Above I stated that the developer is opinionated. This is good, but if you are wanting a theme that evolves its feature set, you might be disappointed with GeneratePress. That’s not a bad thing, and some people prefer it.

People speak very highly of the support.

GeneratePress Alternatives

34 thoughts on “GeneratePress”

  1. Hey Adam,

    Thanks for the review. I’m currently using Astra Pro with Elementor Pro. While I’ve been happy with that combo, I’m trying to improve performance as I think Elementor has gotten a bit bloated lately and Astra might not be keeping up with other themes (maybe?).

    Assuming I can do the design I have in mind without Elementor, I’m considering switching to GeneratePress or Kadence with Kadence Blocks or another comprehensive/good performance blocks plugin.

    I know you’re giving some love to Kadence lately (and the Kadence Pro version is yet to be released), but how would you compare/recommend between Astra, GeneratePress, and Kadence? (assuming premium on all three).

    And, which blocks plugin do you think “assimilates” the most to what Elementor is capable of?

    1. If you are after performance, all 3 perform virtually the same and use the same performance techniques. If you are after features, Astra and GeneratePress are getting crushed by Kadence Theme. All one has to do is try the header/footer builder in Kadence, the global linked color palette, not to mention the added compatibility and features added to Woo and various other plugins. If you are going to go the Gutenberg route, then things get really amazing with copy/paste styles, draggable margins, globally linked color palette, etc. All without a negative performance impact.

      When Kadence Pro comes out, it will have those essential developer features like conditional hooks, more menu items, more special WooCommerce stuff etc. Where Kadence will be lacking for a few months is in the pre-designed templates. It would be virtually impossible to catch up to Astra, but I could see them catching up to GeneratePress by the end of 2020. Also the current state of documentation for Astra and GeneratePress is pretty awesome and it will take months for them to catch up.

    1. Thesis Theme is an old dinosaur that nobody uses anymore. I would have never even considered Thesis Theme as easy to use, it was insanely overly complicated.

  2. Hi, your video has been extremely helpful! I just downloaded GP premium but I can’t seem to find the “GP Hooks” on my wordpress dashboard. Do you have any insight on this?

  3. I’m looking to change my Blog theme and stumbled upon your GP review. I know nothing about coding, would I be able to build my site using this theme?

    1. Yep, GeneratePress is good, you would want to go with the paid version though. If your only budget is free then check out the Kadence Theme.

  4. How do you think GeneratePress compares with Make, by Theme Foundry?
    I’ve been using Make free version for ages. Love it, but thinking about a premium theme that I can use on more than one site.

    1. I would be cautious with the Make theme. If it’s working for you then great, but it’s not modern or embracing the way things are done today. It was interesting 4 years ago but it never really caught on.

  5. Great review.. I am an Indian blogger.. and generatepress perfectly fit my blog.. Thanks for this amazing review..

  6. Awesome Generatepress review…! You have mentioned everything that needs to know before buying a theme.

    By the way, I used the Elementor Page builder with GP to build my homepage, they both work great together.

    And personally, I recommended GeneratePress them too.

  7. Hey Adam,

    Very well reviewed post. I had come here almost 2 months searchings for GeneratePress reviews & impressed with the features you explained here. It looks promising and bought it instantly.

    Today I want to a million thank you for making the best decision for choosing the right WordPress theme.

    Thanks again.

    Harpreet Kumar

  8. GeneratePress is really an excellent and super-fast theme. I’m using it from last 1 year on my 3-4 sites. The cost of GeneratePress theme is also not high, and one can easily buy the pro version. Unfortunately, They don’t provide any coupon code. 🙂 Thanks for reviewing the GeneratePress theme.

      1. The 'Staunch Blogger

        Generatepress doesn’t have any CON. It’s blessed with all about PROS. I know you added the con just to fulfill all rightousness, but the users of generatepres are not equally fans of page builders.

        And with that in mind, generatepress is likely to exist longer with wordpress no matter the changes WP-team might want to bring up into their CMS frameworked platform in future.

        Thanks for the review though, but checkout my blog and see the power of generatepress

  9. Here is Tom’s reply to your concern about page builders

    “I don’t dislike page builders. In fact, I appreciate that they allow people to create really nice websites who otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

    One of the rules we follow is to not add plugin-specific code to the theme. Who knows if Page Builder XYZ will still be popular in a year or two from now? It would be a shame to bloat the theme with a bunch of code that will be unnecessary in the future. It’s easy to add options, but it’s not easy to remove them if you care about backward compatibility.

    One thing I’m really proud of is the themes ability to integrate with any page builder seamlessly, even though it’s not aware of their existence. It speaks to the overall flexibility of GP ?”

    1. And that’s fine. But there is a balance, right? If 2 lines of code add a ton of value for the user experience, is that a worthy tradeoff? Look at the Astra theme which does have this and still is equally as fast if not faster.

  10. Adam, very good review and yes its best WordPress theme that I have been using since year. Super fast, SEO friendly, highly customizable. Love it.

  11. Absolutely great review. Great.

    I have got one question to clarify. Is it a good idea to use elementor pro with free version of generate press?

    And in doing do so, can we remove the Generate Press copyrights section in the footer so that the whole website would look premium rather than a powered by website.

    I was thinking of purchasing Elementor Pro and use it with free version of Generate Press. I would like to pay only for one product.

    Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.

  12. Monica Bouteiller

    Hey Adam,

    Thank you for the quick review of Generate Press. I’m thinking of this theme. Does this also have a landing page layout too?

    The Elementor plugin will work well this?

    Also, what do you think of the Authority Pro theme (Studio Press)?

    Great review!

    Monica

    1. Yes it does, you can disable the header and footer. And it will work great with Elementor.

      I am not really a fan of any of the Studio Press themes. They have very few customization options, you are pretty much stuck with what they give you.

  13. Hi Ads

    Can I ask how come you using an old May/2017 vid on good ole late November 2018 post when things may have changed since ? Just curious.

  14. As one who uses generate press premium, I can tell you the support is tremendous. I am not a coder, and they have helped answer the most basic questions and even given me occasional help with some custom css. They also author a css plugin that is great.

  15. Hi Adam,
    Thanks very much for your Generate Press review. Yesterday (February 16th 2018) I purchased the paid for version – Generate Press Premium. I am exceptionally impressed with it. It’s like a breath of fresh air compared with the other theme I was using. It’s easy to use and there’s loads of documentation, videos and help blogs about this theme. What I say to people is don’t be fooled by GP’s less sophisticated appearance and the sales hype of other themes: This really IS an easy to use, top notch theme – la creme de la creme!!

  16. Hi,
    Thanks for the Generatepress review. I also checked your comparison to it vs Ocean WP.
    I am currently using Divi.
    I am considering switching to a full redesign using the paid version of the WP Types suite. they have a starter theme, but also recommended starting with GeneratePress or Ocean WP.

    So have you used WP Types with either of the themes? any feedback?
    Also, is GeneratePress “RTL” compatible?
    Thanks

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