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Thesis Theme Vs Genesis: A Detailed Comparison To Help You Decide by JaneSheeba
Share: Even though there are a number of WordPress f rameworks, T hesis and Genesis are the ones which of f er great f eatures than any other f ramework. T hese f rameworks are ef f icient and can be used f or your extensive publishing purposes. As I already mentioned last week in one of the weekend read series posts, I moved some of my niche sites and my blogs Jane Sheeba and Merry Relationships to Genesis f ramework (I was using T hesis earlier). T he thought of moving Problogging Success to Genesis is still not in my heart. And I don’t intend to do so. Coz with T hesis 6 f ramework I can make my Imag e c re d it: http ://www.fas hify.c o m/ blog look unique while with Genesis, things are easier to conf igure with child themes. Its a tough decision to make, I know. T hat’s why I decided to give these two f rameworks a try to be able to see f or myself how both these themes perf orm at various levels. I also wanted to help my readers decide which one should they choose. Obviously there is no “one-size-f its-all” solution. T his post will help you to “see” how both these f rameworks perf orm at various aspects and you can then choose depending on which aspect you want more than the others and which one you can compromise. T his is my ef f ort to put bef ore you the strengths and weaknesses of these two f rameworks. An unbiased analysis will help you know the merits and demerits to implement f or your business needs. By the way, bef ore you dive in, don’t f orget to read my f ull review of T hesis theme.
Similarities Both are f rameworks. Both are developed by great developers. T hey load f ast. T hese f rameworks are used by serious WordPress users who would like to take maximum advantage f rom SEO implementations.
Import ance of select ion of right f ramework It is very important to select the most appropriate f ramework f or your blog. You cannot keep on juggling among a set of f rameworks as it will cost you much in terms of time, money and ef f ort (trust me, I’ve had it all). When you switch over to a new f ramework, the major impact will be on the revenue earning part, and more importantly user experience. When you change f rom one f ramework to another f ramework you are required to select the appropriate settings in the new f ramework to get optimum traf f ic results in terms of SEO. Hence, you should be caref ul enough to select the most appropriate f ramework f or your blog.
Installation To install the T hesis f ramework, you will need an FT P program plus a set of permissions to install. T his cannot be achieved through the Dashboard of WordPress. It is important to f ollow the instruction caref ully otherwise, T hesis f ramework will not be installed properly. Compared to T hesis Framework, installation of Genesis is very easy. You can f ollow the steps mentioned below to achieve the same: WordPress Dashboard -> Appearance -> T hemes -> Install T hemes -> Upload Select the Genesis Z ip f ile. Follow the same procedure to install the child theme as well (you need to activate the child theme only, not the Genesis f ramework, if you don’t want the def ault Genesis theme; but you need to have the Genesis f older in the themes f older of your website in order f or the child theme to be f unctional). As you can see, installation is very easy with Genesis f ramework.
How f ast a f ramework loads T he way a webpage loads in the browser is dif f erent f rom one f ramework to another f ramework. However both T hesis and Genesis load f aster compared to the other themes. And they are equally competent in this matter. In order to load a page on the browser, a number of HT ML requests are to be processed. T hese requests include HT ML content, CSS styles, background images, Java scripts, etc. As the number of style sheets is reduced, the page will load f aster on the browser. T here is cut throat competition between T hesis and Genesis in terms of page load time. T hesis has a slight edge over Genesis to be precise. T hesis of f ers options to add additional style sheet f or Internet Explorer and the same is not true with Genesis.
Coding and design Yes you need to know some coding in order to make your blog look prof essional with T hesis. T his is a major downf all, since T hesis itself doesn’t of f er any child theme packages as Genesis does. A f resh T hesis installation will only give you a white blog – a very simple and a clean slate. T hesis indeed wants you to paint your white board as you want it to be. 6 As a result, with T hesis you can make your blog look the way you want – standing out from the crowd of people using the standard themes/skins or child themes. However you should be prepared to spend some time or money on it. You need to either know some coding yourself , or you should hire someone who can do it f or you. Alternatively you can also opt f or skins (I love the ones f rom T hesisawesome). When I started Problogging Success on T hesis, I knew Z ERO coding. But with the help of T hesis tutorials available online, I tweaked my website and here – what you see now at Problogging Success is designed by me f rom scratch. On my hubby’s site (we both write on that site, by the way), we use T hesis and the blog skin f rom T hesisawesome. So yes you need to be willing to spend some time or money to make your blog look unique and stand out f rom the crowd, if you’re a T hesis user. On the other hand, if you don’t care about standing out and just want to kick start with blogging, Genesis is a sweet option. With a number of Genesis child themes available, you can simply pick one that suits your blog and start blogging. Also if you know a bit of coding you can customize the Genesis child themes as well – like tweaking the header, f onts, colors etc.
SEO Options I don’t f ind a big dif f erence between the SEO options provided by T hesis and Genesis. Both the f rameworks of f er great room f or homepage optimization. And both f rameworks of f er additional custom SEO options f or every post. T he way the theme structures the site is also so elegant f or easy crawling f or search engines, in both the f rameworks. It is also possible to set 301 redirects f or any post, page or URL. With both T hesis and Genesis there is no need f or a third party SEO plugin. In my opinion, I will give Genesis an extra score because it has more options to customize single posts and pages – like the layout, custom body and class, custom redirect, custom canonical, custom tracking code – and all these options are much more easier to implement than with T hesis (some options are not available with T hesis).
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Support No matter what f ramework you select and to which f ramework you hook on, it is essential that you should expect a decent support both at current times and in the coming days. If the f ramework is supported by a good development team, you will get updates at regular intervals of time. Both T hesis and Genesis are backed by a noteworthy bunch of developers. Even though Genesis is backed by a number of support staf f , it lags behind in attracting enough community members. On the other hand, communities around T hesis are bustling with activity. You can f ind exhaustive tutorials on T hesis. T he same is not true with Genesis. But this could be also because users of Genesis are just happy with what the child themes of f er. In addition to the ‘How Tos’, T hesis of f ers detailed documentation on any hook or f ilter. You can f ind extensive inf ormation on various f acets of the f ramework f rom community members. Genesis has the advantage of the auto-upgrade f eature which gives the least trouble to users. While with T hesis, updating is bit of a PITA. I ref er to the step by step tutorial of upgrading every time; and if I do anything slightly wrong, my site breaks down!
Future Genesis has great prospects to excel in the coming months. T he f ramework has shown tremendous growth in the past six months. T hesis had shown a consistent track record over the past two years and it is expected that it will grow leaps and bounds in the coming months.
T hesis 1.8 which brought revolutionary changes in the f ramework with the inclusion of Google Fonts and WordPress Security API will take it a long way and many WordPress users are going to embrace it. Good documentation and support f rom community members is a plus point f or T hesis’ growth.
Pricing T he cost of the product is one of the main f actors that decides its success. Genesis is comparatively priced lesser than T hesis. T hesis f or personal users costs $87 and developer version costs $164 (developer version is not the client version. Developer version allows you to use T hesis on unlimited sites that you own. For client sites you have to pay extra $40 f or each site). 6 Genesis f ramework costs $59.95 and and child theme plus f ramework costs $79.95. Genesis Pro Plus costs $349.95. T hesis personal option allows you to work on one live website and one local server. Developer’s option allows you to use T hesis on a number of websites owned by a single user. If a developer is working f or a client website, he/she can pay $40 f or every single client site license. Genesis f ramework which costs $59.95 can be used to work on unlimited number of websites whether own or those which belong to a client. T heme plus Genesis Framework allows you to use on unlimited number of sites whether to own sites or client’s sites. Proplus packages let you use Genesis Framework plus every child theme developed by StudioPress on unlimited number of sites whether they are owned by you or by clients. So when it comes to pricing, Genesis clearly is a winner in my book.
Takeaway Genesis and T hesis are undoubtedly the two big giants in the online world helping people to build beautif ul and ef f ective websites. With my personal experience in using both these f rameworks, all I can say is they are similar at the performance level. However as a site owner, if you dare not to spend any time and money (apart f rom buying the f ramework+child theme/skin) Genesis should be the option f or you. Since Genesis doesn’t want you to go through building your site f rom scratch, you have everything in position with Genesis f ramework so that you can simply start blogging. At the same time, you should be prepared to give up the option to make a unique looking site. Since Genesis of f ers child themes, unless you spend on a hef ty custom design, your site will look pretty much like many other sites that use the same child theme. With T hesis, this is not the case. So there you have it – now it all depends on what you want. Every person and every business is dif f erent. So what I opt will not suit everyone. If you know what you want, it should be easy f or you to make a decision f rom the detailed comparison I’ve given in this post. I appreciate your comment as always!
Art icle by JaneSheeba +Jane is the f ounder of Problogging Success. She is an expert blogger, consultant, f reelance writer and blog designer. Don't f orget to get your hands on two FREE Ebooks she of f ers. .