When comparing Genesis to Thesis, it’s really up to the individual web designer and developer to decide what they like best. That being said, there are a few basic differences that might sway a newbie to select Genesis over Thesis as a WordPress framework.
Genesis Wins the Money Round
Let’s be honest, consumers always want the most bang for their buck. When you’re looking at software and development tools, it’s still the same game. You need to get the most tools for the most money. Genesis beats Thesis hands down in this arena. There are basically three different pricing levels for Thesis and Genesis. However, when you get into the high end developer arena, where developers create sites for clients, Genesis is much cheaper.
Thesis Charges:
$164 for their Developer Plan, and then you must pay an additional $40 dollars for each additional client site. If you purchase 5 client site licenses the price will drop to $36 per site or a bulk purchase of 10 licenses drops the price to $32 per client site.
Genesis Charges:
$299.95 for the Genesis FrameworkPro Plus package. You can use this on unlimited websites. There are no licensing issues, plus you get access to all the child themes created by StudioPress (Around 40). So, for developers who need to do lots of websites, Genesis is definitely going to be the better priced option, because the site licenses to use the framework could start adding up really fast.
Genesis Offers More Variety in Themes
For beginners, both products look pretty much the same right out of the box. However, once you start getting into the theme designs, most people agree that Genesis offers a great variety of designs to fit different industries. Thesis seems to stick with themes mostly geared towards marketing and business sites.
Genesis Wins in Installation Ease
Thesis has a pretty complicated installation process. It requires an FTP program with permission changes and can’t be done directly from the WordPress dashboard. It also requires quite a bit of folder creation, copying, and moving around, which shouldn’t be hard for most developers. However, it could be tricky for a newbie.
The installation of Genesis is very similar to other software programs. You’ve got to buy it first, of course, but from there, you just go to your WordPress Dashboard, Appearance, Themes, Install Themes, Upload, and find the Genesis Zip file. You hit the install button and activate it. Any child themes that are purchased, you go through the same steps to install them as well, simple.
Thesis Still Wins in SEO & Ease of Customization
Thesis has over 37,000 users and is very popular. It’s also got hot SEO optimization tools, easy to use controls, and a great support staff. Thesis allows users to do a lot of customization right from the admin panel just by checking and unchecking boxes.
You don’t have to know CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to get in and change things. However, when it comes to overall look, many users think Genesis pages look a little less generic then Thesis based pages.
Genesis Seems to Sway the Social Media Audience
Due to Genesis having such great child themes that allow the sites to be easily changed, many social media fanatics are being converted to the Genesis side of the force. However, thesis still has a strong following of SEO heavy users. The good news is that there are choices in the WordPress framework and theme area.
For the newbie who’s looking to dive into deep waters of web design, it looks like Genesis might be more money conscience and give them more looks to play with as they dive into the shark infested waters of web design.
Great comparision my dear friend. Still i love my own developed theme as i think their child themes increase the load time of our website. Am i right ?
~rakesh kumar
Rakesh, Child theme help you to increase the load time of your blog.