Best WordPress Theme Frameworks
WordPress frameworks are the time-savers that you will never want to miss, because they help you skip writing repetitive code which becomes really time-consuming and boring.
WordPress frameworks’ main purpose is to code a WP theme faster by reducing the time spent on tasks you repeat with every theme you’re working on.
What, Why & Who
There are several reasons why you would like to make good use of frameworks, the main ones being their ease of use, support provided by various WordPress communities, optimized code and code that complies and is up to date to WP standards. Even if these frameworks have a lot of advantages, there are limitations and Cons you have to consider. One of the problems developers face is the limitation the original developers of the framework invoke, and various licenses which clearly state what you can and can not do with your template. Frameworks work great for starting developers or those who haven’t ended up with their own frameworks, because often times common frameworks yield into being heavily modified and becoming developer’s property.
PROs
- Optimized Code & SEO Ready platform
- Beginner-Ready structure makes it easy for beginners to start out
- Download & Install makes the frameworks accessible immediately
CONs
- Most Frameworks are paid or require a paid membership to be accessed/downloaded
- Are not fully optimized for specific needs and require modifications
- Licenses invoke various limitations on how it can be used
Best WordPress Theme Frameworks
Genesis Framework
The Genesis Framework empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible sites with WordPress. It doesn’t matter if you are a novice or a professional, the Genesis framework will provide you with a secure and SEO optimized foundation that will take WordPress to levels you never thought of. It is very customizable and lets you configure it even more, with the perfectly-clean code it is very easy.
For a one-type payment you get the Genesis Framework itself, instant access to all downloadable files, unlimited updates for files, support & sites and access to detailed tutorials. StudioPress, the developers of the Genesis framework have given you the possibility to grab more than one theme, actually all of themes they have released and will release in future for a mere payment of $350.
Price: $50 for one template (including framework), $350 for all templates.
Thesis 2.0
Thesis is another premium WordPress framework that focuses on 3 main sections: Boxes that add functionality to your theme without the hassle of writing your own code, Skins that add drag and drop your way to a beautiful WordPress design or pick one their masterpieces and Packages that deploy advanced CSS customization in just a few clicks. The framework is also optimized for search engines which come packed with various skins for the framework.
The framework is designed with ease-of-use in mind with drag-and-drop functionality. Thesis has a killer support forum that will help you get your site up and running without any problem. Their experts are ready to answer your questions and will be there to stand by your back.
Price: $87 – $164 (depending on your package)
PageLines Framework
PageLines is a responsive, drag & drop framework that is meant for websites that want to have a code-free drag & drop framework for WP. The framework code is specifically engineered for a great SEO performance with several options for social marketing. It is packed with tons of addons and a responsive design base. The color control engine, the less & bootstrap support and the drag and drop design makes it even better.
There are several things you will like about the PageLines framework, including their Responsive Layout Control that lets you control the dimensions of your website for various mobile devices – making it responsive by using a drag-n-drop builder. There is also the Theming Support they provide, stellar assistance from their professionals and a friendly community made up of mainly developers.
PageLines have priced their framework accordingly, the Personal plan being priced at $97 or $14/mo with a “Plus Membership” or $197 for a developer plan.
Price: $97 – $197
Pro Theme Design
Elemental is a clean and powerful blog framework for WordPress which is packed with options for customizable layouts, navigation, page templates and typography. It was developed by BenGillbanks who is a professional web designer with over 10 years experience. He created the framework for himself but he has improved it for over two years than made it publicly available. Other remarkable features of the framework are: the solid SEO base it is built on, the custom WP menus system, the widgets and the translation-ready files.
The elemental framework is available in two plans: the basic and the developer one, they being priced at $80 and $160 accordingly.
Headway Themes
The Headway framework is another drag-n-drop theme builder that lets you customize any page, colors, fonts, all with the power of the Headway Visual Editor. Great designs have never been more flexible and easy to customize with this framework. The framework is integrated with several options and extensions like the Drag-n-Drop Grid, the Design Editor, the SEO optimized code and the responsive/adaptive optimization.
The Headway Framework costs $87 for the basic packaged and $174 for the advanced package.
Gantry Framework
Gantry is an easy and powerful theme that enables the rapid development and realization of a design into a flexible and powerful web platform theme. Gantry is a framework built exclusively for Joomla and WordPress which has a very bright, stylish and sleek user interfaces.
The Gantry framework is available for free and it support can be provided via an external forum and a bunch of introductory videos.
Theme Hybrid
Hybrid is another free but pretty awesome WordPress framework that is user-friendly, SEO optimized which features several custom page templates and multiple widget-ready areas that allow you to create any type of site you want. There are several theme features supported by Hybrid, some of which are: Breadcrumbs support, custom menus and page templates, featured images, post stylesheets and the availability to translate it.
There are about 10 child themes of the Hybrid framework which can help you understand the possibilities of the framework. There are also several child theme tutorials that can help you get familiar & better understand how the template works.
Whiteboard Framework
Whiteboard Framework is a powerful framework that helps you speed up the development of amazing WordPress themes. Whiteboard does so by eliminating the time spent on code common to all WP themes, and is packed with several awesome features like: search engine optimization, speed, usability and mobile support.
An amazing thing about this framework is that it is completely free and open source, which is definitely great considering that other templates’ pricing starts at $50. The WhiteBoard framework is multi-lungual compatible and its code is strong search engine optimized.
Working with these frameworks as a base build is a waste of time, I would highly recommend http://underscores.me/ for a complete freedom :)
What about iThemes Builder? One of the best frameworks I’ve seen.
thanks for sharing guys. its very beatifull themes lol :)
Actual reviews of these frameworks would be a lot more helpful than copying meaningless selling points from other sites. My first and hopefully last time to instantshift.
great post. good stuffing. thanks for a sharing this.
Coda comes with a great feature that allows you to save your code snippets. This may be a better solutions then paying for a framework. Instead you could just pay the 99 for coda or get an open source development environment like Aptana that will save your code snippets also. Furthermore, WordPress has a great plugin for SEO called Yoast which will take out most of the work for you in relation to keywords, titles, and descriptions. Hope that helps!
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