GeneratePress and Genesis Theme are some of the most popular (and most used) WordPress themes on the market.
Both of them are extremely fast, search engine optimized, and easily customizable.
But which one is better? GeneratePress vs Genesis?
That’s what we are going to find out today.
In this post, I’m going to dig deep into different aspects of these themes and find out which one is best for you.
I promise by the end of this post, you’ll know exactly which theme you have to use on your site.
So without wasting any further time, let’s dive in.
Topics of This Content
GeneratePress vs Genesis: Head to Head Comparison
| Features | GeneratePress | Genesis |
| Price | $59 | $59.95 |
| Responsive | Yes | Yes |
| Page Builder Compatible | Yes | No |
| Free Version | Yes | No |
| Link | GeneratePress | Genesis |
Pros and Cons
Pros of GeneratePress Theme:
- Lightweight and fast.
- SEO Optimized.
- Very secure.
- Compatible with all page builders.
- Plenty of color and typography options.
- Various customization options.
- Pocket friendly.
- You can disable the elements that you don’t want to use.
- 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Hundreds of pre-made templates.
- Easy WooCommerce Integration.
- Developer friendly.
- Mobile responsive.
Cons of GeneratePress Theme:
- The free version has limited features.
- Not suitable for fashion or any kind of sites where fancy design is needed.
- The lifetime plan is somewhere costlier than Genesis Theme.
Pros of Genesis Theme:
- Lifetime updates and support.
- SEO Friendly.
- Developer friendly.
- Excellent performance.
- Mobile responsive.
- Pre-made templates.
Cons of Genesis Theme:
- Lack of customization options.
- Needs lots of third-party plugins and a child theme.
- Doesn’t have an affordable pricing option like GeneratePress.
- Very limited features.
Quick Overview of Generatepress and Genesis
GeneratePress and Genesis framework are both one of my personal favorite and most famous WordPress themes in the market.
Before I dive into the nuts and bolts of these themes, let me tell you a quick overview.
Overview of GeneratePress
GeneratePress is a lightweight and performance-focused WordPress theme.
It’s specially created for those people who prioritize their site performance and speed over fancy looking design.
It was launched back in 2014 by its founder and creator Tom Usborne and till now it has gained an immense amount of popularity in the WordPress theme space.
Even this website (that you’re reading right now) is built with a GeneratePress theme and I’ve been using it on this website for the last 2 years.
The best part above everything is this theme is completely free to use.
However, if you want some more advanced and cool features then you can also grab the premium GeneratePress plugin as well that will enable you to take the design of your site to next level.
Overview of Genesis
Genesis is another very popular WordPress theme in today’s age.
It’s a fast, search engine optimized, and well-designed theme ideal for beginners and as well as for developers.
Genesis is basically a theme framework that works with a child theme.
It’s the most popular product of studiopress (One of the top WordPress theme companies) and over 600,000+ websites are actively using it.
If you’re looking for an SEO-Optimized theme for your site then Genesis Theme can be a good option for you.
Which Theme is The Fastest And Performance-Optimized?
Way back I used to choose the themes of my website based on its appearance and design.
I used to think that design is everything.
Until one day when Google punched me in my face.
My rankings started to fall day by day and I was totally clueless.
I was like:
What the heck is happening with me.
And then after a few days, I got to know that Google recently launched a new update about page speed.
Honestly saying, before that I didn’t know that page speed can have an impact on Google search ranking.
After knowing that, I quickly checked the page speed of my website and I was totally shocked by the results.
The page of my website was almost – 10 seconds.
It was terribly slow.
And that’s when I decided to change my theme and focus on performance instead of look and appearance.
After changing the theme, everything is going smoothly without any issue.
Long story short, Whenever you choose any theme your first preference should be the speed and performance.
Now let’s see which of these WordPress themes will provide better performance and the fastest loading speed.
GeneratePress Performance
GeneratePress is probably one of the best performance focused theme on the market.
The size of the default GeneratePress theme is less than 10 KB.
Isn’t it a super lite theme?
And because of its lightweight nature, it naturally doesn’t take too much time to load.
You don’t even have to use any optimization plugins or tools unless you’re using any page builder like Elementor and any other extra plugin to design your site.
The best thing I like about GeneratePress is you’ll get almost everything starting from their own page builder to various customization options right on their theme.
You can also disbable the elements that you won’t use.
And because of this, it won’t add-up any extra weight on your site and it will eventually load faster.
Genesis Theme Performance
Like GeneratePress, the Genesis is also a lightweight and performance-optimized theme.
However, I think it still lacks to provide better performance than GeneratePress.
And I have a reason for that.
The reason is, with GeneratePress you’ll get everything under one roof.
But Genesis is a bit different.
To extend the functionalities of the Genesis theme for designing your website, you have to install some extra plugins like:
- Genesis Simple Edits.
- Genesis Connect for WooCommerce.
- Genesis Simple Menus.
- Genesis Simple Share.
- Genesis Responsive Slider.
- Genesis Simple Hooks.
- Genesis Tabs.
- And many more.
On top of that, you have to install a child theme along with the Genesis Framework.
Ultimately, it put on some extra weight on the website and can slow down the site as well.
I’m not saying that Genesis is a slow and unoptimized theme but if we compare GeneratePress and Genesis side by side, I think GeneratePress has an extra edge because of its in-built functionalities and lightweight nature.
Winner – GeneratePress
Which Theme Is More Compatible With Page Builders?
I’m a fan of page builders. I use page builders a lot for designing my websites.
Do you also use page builders?
Then it’s really important to check the compatibility of your page builder and theme so that both can align easily without any conflict.
Some WordPress themes align easily with page builders but some don’t.
Since a lot of people use page builders these days, I decided to compare GeneratePress and Genesis theme based on the page builder compatibility.
GeneratePress
GeneratePress is compatible with all the major page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Thrive Architect, and many more.
Even this website (that you’re reading right now) is designed using GeneratePress and Elementor page builder.
I haven’t had a single compatibility issue with GeneratePress and Elementor till now.
Other than that, almost every page builder officially included GeneratePress on their compatible themes list.
Genesis
On the other hand, Genesis is not that compatible with page builders.
Even many page builder users faced compatibility issues with the Genesis theme.
If you know how to code, then this wouldn’t be a problem for you since you can design your website using coding.
But if you’re like me and sorely depend upon page builders to design your website, then Genesis won’t be an ideal option for you.
Overall, GeneratePress is way more compatible with page builders than Genesis.
Winner – GeneratePress
Which Theme Has More Customization Options?
Most of the WordPress themes usually have very few customization options.
Either you have to code yourself beyond those tiny little customization options or you have to use a page builder.
But these days some themes have started providing out-of-the-box customization options that we never thought of.
GeneratePress and Genesis are one of those themes.
Both GeneratePress and Genesis have plenty of customization options that are enough for designing a beautiful-looking website.
But who has the best customization options?
Let’s find out.
GeneratePress Customization Options
GeneratePress has a bunch of amazing customization options that will blow your mind.
Starting from the header to the footer, you can smoothly customize every bit of your website on the GeneratePress theme.
I’m not going to show you the basic customization options like typography and color selection that most of the themes have.
Instead, I’m going to focus on the unique ones.
And the most unique customization feature GeneratePress has is the hooks and filters feature.
Using the GeneratePress hook feature, you can insert custom code or shortcode at any part of your website.
You can also change the layout design of your navigation, widgets, blog, and sidebar.
Genesis Customization Option
On the flip side, Genesis Theme lacks to provide as many customization options as GeneratePress.
If you don’t have coding knowledge, then you’ll face a hard time while customizing the Genesis theme.
However, Genesis does provide some plugin add-ons that ultimately extend the functionality and customization options of the Genesis theme.
Still, I think Genesis lacks behind GeneratePress in terms of customization options and flexibility.
Winner – GeneratePress
Features Of GeneratePress And Genesis Theme
Till now, I’ve almost covered the most crucial part of this comparison.
But one thing that we can’t miss is the overall features of both of these themes.
At this time you already know:
- Which theme is the fastest one.
- Which one has more customization options.
- And which theme is compatible with page builders.
Still, before you made your decision, you also have to look at the overall features of these themes.
Both of these have dozens of amazing features that work like a double-edged sword.
Let’s quickly have a look at those features.
Extraordinary Features Of GeneratePress
GeneratePress is popular because of its extraordinary and out of the box features.
Here are some of the amazon features of GeneratePress:
- In-built page builder.
- Very lightweight theme.
- You get an option to disable the modules which you don’t want to use.
- Control website layout for each page.
- Several customization options.
- Insert code or shortcode at any part of your website using the custom hooks feature of Generatepress.
- Import and export your theme settings.
- Plenty of pre-built sites.
And that’s not it.
It has way more features than this but I’ve only included the most important and impactful ones which will help you the most.
Features of Genesis
Genesis is a very simple theme. It has a very minimal design and a few customization options.
And the features of the Genesis theme are also very restricted. You won’t see many flashing features in the Genesis theme.
Some of the top features of Genesis are:
- One-click theme setup.
- Additional Gutenberg content blocks.
- Header customizer.
- Featured content widget.
- Theme customizer.
- Premade custom page templates.
That’s it.
Again in terms of features as well, GeneratePress is clearly winning the game right off the bat.
So if you’re fond of the latest features then GeneratePress is the best option for you.
Pricing Plans: Generatepress vs Genesis
Now here comes the most important part of this Generatepress and Genesis comparison.
The pricing battle!
Believe it or not, pricing is the most influenced deciding factor that we all follow.
So how can I miss this part?
Here’s why I’m going to compare the pricing of Generatepress and Genesis and figure out which one is worth spending the money on.
GeneratePress Pricing
GeneratePress has two different plans.
- Yearly – $59
- Lifetime – $249
Earlier, GeneratePress had only one plan (Yearly plan) but recently they launched their lifetime plan as well.
If you’re a blogger, run a small business, or digital marketing professional then the yearly plan would be sufficient for you.
However, if you an agency or do freelancing works then the lifetime plan would be really profitable for you.
Both of these plans come with a 30 Days money-back guarantee so you don’t have to take any risks as well.
You can ask for a refund of your money within 30 days if you don’t like their premium version.
Remember, each of these plans allows you to use GeneratePress on 500 websites.
Hence it’s not a bad deal considering the features you’ll get on this theme.
Recommended to Read: GeneratePress Free Vs Premium – Which one you should choose?
Genesis Framework Pricing
Genesis Framework costs only $59.95.
With this plan, you’ll get lifetime updates of this theme and can use it on unlimited websites.
Along with the framework, you also have to purchase a child theme which will cost around $50.
So in total, you have to spend more than $100 for using the whole Genesis theme on your site.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s worth the money you’ll spend because GeneratePress gives you way more features and functionality and has affordable pricing as well.
Overall, I think spending your hard-earned money on GeneratePress would be a better option for you.
FAQ on GeneratePress Vs Genesis
Are these themes free?
GeneratePress has a free and premium version but Genesis is a fully premium theme and doesn’t have any free plan.
Can I use them with page builders?
You can use GeneratePress with any page builder without any compatibility issue but Genesis is not an optimal option to use page builders.
Which theme has more flexibility for customization?
GeneratePress theme has more flexibility and customization options than the Genesis theme.
Final Thoughts: GeneratePress Vs Genesis
GeneratePress is clearly winning this comparison in every aspect.
Whether it’s features or pricing, GeneratePress is shining like a diamond.
Other than that, the performance of the GeneratePress theme is slightly better than Genesis since you don’t have to install multiple plugins and child themes to run the theme like Genesis.
So in short, if you’re looking for a theme that is fast, SEO optimized, has great flexibility in terms of customization and value for money then GeneratePress would be my ultimate recommendation for you.
