Kadence and OceanWP are highly ranked on WordPress.org for the most popular and most downloaded themes. Both themes have a pro and a free version. I will quickly show you the best features of both themes and give my opinion.
The Kadence Theme
This Kadence Theme Review will quickly show you what to expect from this increasingly popular theme. There are people who think that this is the best current free WordPress theme and I have to say it is certainly up there together with Astra and a few other themes.
Kadence's Rating 5/5
The Kadence theme can be downloaded for free via their own site or via WordPress.org where it is one of the most popular themes with a very high rating. The theme is already above 100,000 active installs. In other words, it is currently installed on more than 100,000 websites. You can see all this data in the images below.
Kadence's Demo Websites
This video shows you exactly how to import a demo website into your WordPress which is a bit different then most themes operate. The video on the right starts exactly where the demos are mentioned. To learn how to import the plugin for this, watch the video from the beginning.
Kadence Theme Review Performance
We are running a Kadence Theme Test on loading speed at GT-Metrix. We use a website with the Kadence Theme with optimized images and the best cache plugin out there, WP-Rocket. This cache plugin already works fine once installed, but in this case we also set it up perfectly to achieve the best possible results. You can see these results below, the theme is amazingly fast.
Kadence's Page Builders
Kadence is a special theme that works very well with the Gutenberg Editor, which is an exception because it is actually not possible to work with it on its own since Gutenberg is still in the testing phase. Kadence does this by using a plug-in they developed themselves called Kadence Blocks. Of course, the theme also works perfectly with the Elementor page builder or any other elite page builder.
Kadence Theme Review Colors
The Kadence theme offers 12 pre-programmed color combinations, which also include feminine websites and Light & Dark Colors. The programming of the colors was carried out by a professional team. Incidentally, it is certainly possible to make personal adjustments to such a color combination.
Kadence Header Editor
The Kadence theme uses a special header editor with which the header can be styled very freely, even by people who do not have technical knowledge such as HTML or PHP knowledge. Many top themes today have this, and the feature is often referred to as Header Builder.
Kadence Compatibility
Apart from compatibility with all top page builders, the Kadence theme is also compatible with plugins that are important to many people. These include The Events Calendar, Learndash, Woocommerce, LifterLMS, and a few more. It allows you to sell products, conduct courses, solicit donations, or lead a forum through your website.
Kadence conclusion
My take on Kadence is that it’s no surprise that its free version has become so popular. Even the free version is already very good, and the pro version takes it even further. Kadence can really be used for all types of website and I can definitely recommend the theme for both beginners and pros. However, there are themes that are even better, such as Astra or Ocean-WP, but more about that in another article.
Let’s continue this Kadence vs OceanWP comparison with the OceanWP Theme.
OceanWP is one of the highest rated themes that also has more then 700,000 active installations. This is one of the best themes out there for WordPress, which applies to both the free and pro versions. Originally OceanWP was developed to load very quickly and also to create beautiful professional webshops. Let’s start this OceanWP Review.
OceanWP's rating
OceanWP Theme Demo Websites
When we talk about OceanWP, we are not talking about a small collection of demo websites. How about 220+ complete website layouts, 70 of which can be edited with Elementor and the rest with Gutenberg. Incidentally, the theme is compatible with all Elite page builders that are available for WordPress.
OceanWP & Woocommerce
OceanWP was developed for building shops and the theme is indeed very good at that. The theme has every possible feature that is available for shops to present themselves professionally and to offer maximum comfort for shoppers. Think of things like Quick View, Off Canvas filters, Multi-Step check-out, Add To Cart pop-up, and so much more. The shop can also be shown in multiple styles, and don’t forget all the extras that the Elementor Widget entails.
OceanWP loading Speed
The OceanWP theme is one of the fastest themes that also stand out in quality at the same time. The loading times are not as fast as those of Astra and Generatepress, but that is also the cream of the crop in that area. OceanWP is just below that.
OceanWP Pricing
OceanWP is particularly cheap compared to other much less good themes, since it can be used on multiple sites and the price is also very low. This theme is therefore more than worth its price.
OceanWP Theme Review Conclusion
You have come to the end of this OceanWP Theme review. OceanWP is suitable for beginners, experienced web designers and developers. It is a complete theme, so it has everything one can think of. It has beautiful demo designs for both shops and normal websites, many of which were built with the popular page builder Elementor. It also loads very fast, it has the best features for shops. In short, this is an elite theme which is also competitively priced. Recommended!
OceanWP vs Kadence Conclusion
Here’s my opinion at the end of this Kadence vs OceanWP test. As far as loading time is concerned, these themes are approximately the same. OceanWP’s demo designs come in much larger numbers, made with Elementor, and the layouts are nicer. Kadence is a very good theme, especially as a free version, but OceanWP just does it a lot better. Winner is OceanWP.