Rating: 5 stars

This theme is very customizable, even in the free version, and beautifully clean visually. I was having an issue with the size of the featured photos, emailed about the problem, and Sinisa with the Support Team, replied right away. He gave me some troubleshooting tips, then, when that didn’t take care of it, got in there and figured out/fixed the problem himself. TBH, I didn’t expect to get this level of support while using a free version of the theme, but wow was I surprised.

Rating: 5 stars

I’ve never used WordPress before now. I was looking for a clean simple theme that I could customize for my blog. I bought Ariel pro. It was reasonably priced. At first I struggled because of my lack of WordPress knowledge but once I spent some time working at it, I learned a lot. The support at LyraThemes is awesome. They were more helpful than I expected. Also, the theme is quite responsive and looks great on mobile device. I’m happy I chose Ariel as my first blog theme.

Rating: 4 stars

I recently installed this theme on a client’s site, and am posting this review more for the tech support than the theme, though I like the theme very much. I guess the irony is that if I hadn’t needed tech support so much, I’d be giving it a 5-star review. But let me explain:

There is a similar theme to this one, Kale, by the same developer, Lyra. It has the ability for the user to rearrange layout modules on the front page. I was in rather a hurry when having to choose this theme, and chose Ariel for a few other features Kale didn’t have. I either assumed Ariel had this front page rearrangement feature, as well, or got the two confused. At any rate, I thought I’d be able to move the main text box on the front page more toward the top, and I can’t do that easily, without paid customization. So that’s my one issue with this theme.

Otherwise, everything I’ve tried to do has been easy and very straightforward. The developers have been careful to make the user interface simple and understandable, even for a relative newbie like me. But when you need tech support, that’s where Lyra shines!

Though it’s email support only — which I know could be an issue for someone building a site on deadline — the support itself is excellent. Just really, really excellent. Concise without being abrupt, proactively helpful in offering suggestions I didn’t think to ask (or even know to ask), friendly, and — ready for this? — KIND! I am so unused to simple human kindness in these situations, that the warmth of the techs I’ve encountered (and not just one of them) has been an almost shocking and unexpected delight.

No theme is going to be perfect for any one person or use, but this one is darn close, and the ability to use custom CSS (which, had I the skill, would have eliminated several of my questions to tech support) to customize it is a serious benefit. My great experience with tech support has left me with the feeling that Lyra is the first developer I will go to from here on for new themes. I hope to see more from them in the future.

Rating: 5 stars

The family of themes including this one are great for my purposes; contemporary, sleak, easy to customize, and I got AMAZING support when I emailed a question, which is really rare. Most people are putting out these themes without much care or support; not these guys. Highly recommend and thanks for the top notch professionalism in the wild west of WordPress!