Disadvatages to using Premium themes?

  • Hi Folks,

    I am a fairly new web designer and have taken a keen liking to WordPress – what’s not to like??

    I am trying to figure out any reason why I should not be using a premium theme (from say Themeforest) versus creating a custom theme from HTML CSS.

    I have in the past worked with some developers overseas and I have been told not to use themes, instead create from scratch. I personally see that as them up-selling and trying to get more business.

    Any thoughts??

    Thanks

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • Funny, use whatever floats your boat. If there is a premium or free theme that meets your needs, then by all means, use that theme. One can develop a custom theme that is stripped down to only those elements that one needs. Any advantage would generally be pretty minor.

    If you are a serious web developer, or wanting to be one, and you want to learn as much as you can about WordPress, I would first use one of the themes from the WordPress Theme repository versus buying a commercial theme. Yes, there are a few clunkers, but there are a lot of really good themes in there as well. The hard part is trying to pick the one that is right for you. Just working with the default TwentyThirteen theme is good experience.

    Once you do settle on a theme or two, work with it a bit, try your hand at customizing it using your own CSS, then learn to create a child theme from the theme you’re using. This will give you a lot of insight as to how a theme is created, how all the different files fit together.

    Learning how to modify a theme via a child theme is generally enough to handle most web design projects, but if you really want to design a theme from scratch, at least you’ll have a much better understanding of how to do it.

    Also, do be aware that commercial themes are not supported on these forums, so make sure that if you do buy one, that the developer will be able and willing to provide the level of support you may need.

    Hello teekay235,

    There are not any disadvantage in using premium things, but certainly there are some points to get confirm before using any of them.

    1. Is sufficient support available for premium theme ? because you can’t take it’s support from wordpress forums

    2. Is theme light weight ? because premium themes are developed by addressing different needs of different people. So there is cluster of options available for which there are many js files and php code has been written in theme. It may happen that you even do not require more than 50% of code at any moment.

    3. Is it fit to your budget, since there are many options available in market.

    4. Is theme has been developed by following all the coding standards ?

    Hope these points will help you in selection of premium themes and you will be able to calculate pros and cons of the premium themes.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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