This year, it’s felt like change is in the air. The WordPress landscape seems to be shifting at the small-to-medium client level, with ever-stronger competitors driving attempted innovation within WordPress, while some giant players (huge hosting companies, “everything” themes) continue to gobble up huge numbers of the worst-informed customers and the rest of the marketplace starts to crunch.
In this slightly unsteady-feeling environment, there’s a lot to be thankful for—including the change itself. So in honor of Thanksgiving, here’s my WordPress thankful list for 2017. In no particular order:
SiteGround
I would not like WordPress without SiteGround.
I’m just going to come out and say it: I would not like WordPress without SiteGround.
SiteGround makes WordPress actually work. It’s not infernally slow, nothing breaks that you didn’t break yourself, there’s no downtime, the user interfaces aren’t deliberately confusing or manipulative, it’s not constantly upselling you to a “support package” or a “security package” or whatever when you go looking for the features that hosting should have in the first place, and so on.
I’ve got to speak up for the theme GeneratePress. It has everything I need and nothing I don’t. It gives me a lean, clean, sensible starting point for all my sites. Common customizations are conveniently present, without bogging my sites down with the whole kitchen sink. The premium features are loaded with a plugin, and can be included individually, so you don’t load what you don’t need.
Already in the few months I’ve been using GP, deluxe improvements have been made. The theme is not only actively maintained, but in development.
Support is quick, responsive, personable, and often goes beyond what a theme-author should be responsible for. It seems to be a one-man shop. Documentation is full of handy, comprehensible tidbits and helper functions. I’m thankful.
Loving Gantry 5. Best starter theme I’ve used in 5 years.
Have a lifetime Divi license but cannot, with any good conscience, use it for paying clients. Still no responsive images in almost every module and, once you’re in it, you’re in it!