We compare two of the most popular WordPress themes for the construction of websites of the moment here. Kadence and Blocksy have as well a free- as a pro version. Blocksy vs Kadence, which is the better theme? We start with Kadence which at this moment does not mean it would be better.
The Blocksy Theme
This Blocksy Theme Review will quickly explain why it is such an amazing theme. This theme can be used for building websites, blogs, and shops. This theme works flawlessly with Gutenberg. But it also works great together with all well-known WordPress pagebuilders like Divi or Elementor. Let’s have a look the free- and pro versions of Blocksy.
Blocksy's Rating
Blocksy has a free and a pro version. Both are immensely popular and receive top ratings. WordPress.org blocksy’s rating shows that all the raters gave 5 stars, with only 1 other rater giving 4 stars. It is difficult to get a better average rating than the one shown by Blocksy Theme.
Blocksy Theme's Loading Speed
The Blocksy Theme scores insanely well on every renowned speed test the internet has to offer. You can tune the theme yourself extra for speed by using a good cache plugin in it. That is always recommended for any theme, as well as using CDN if your website focuses on traffic from multiple countries.
Blocksy Demos
It is always important for a theme to have a reasonable collection of demos, also called start sites. Nobody wants to build a site from scratch these days. People prefer to set up a demo to be able to work much faster. Blocksy offers a great collection of starter sites which is totally awesome. If you hover over the different demos on their site, you can see which page builders they can be edited with. Usually that’s for Gutenberg and Elementor.
4 Different pagebuilders
Not everyone has the same page builder as their favorite. However, the Blocksy Theme is suitable for almost everyone as it works perfectly with no less than 4 different page builders: Gutenberg, Brizy, BeaverBuilder and Elementor. My preference is for Elementor, an insanely good page builder.
Blocksy Header-Builder
We used to mess around with the headers and HTML knowledge was certainly needed to get the header exactly the way you wanted it. For a few years now, good themes have been provided with header builders that make styling the header a piece of cake. A young theme like Blocksy also immediately has a very good header builder.
Blocksy Footer Builder
What goes for both the header and footer builder is that you can build multiple different headers or footers and use them on different pages. The design possibilities are practically unlimited.
Blocksy Woocommerce Webshop
Blocksy has good demos for webshops and has a lot of great options that make your shop look really professional. Above you can see some of these options like Quick View, Floating Cart, Wishlist, Search by SKU and more.
Blocksy Theme Review Conclusion
This Blocksy Theme review shows that the theme has impressive options. This includes the 4 page builders that can be used with the corresponding demos. The demos themselves are of good quality and there are about 25 of them, a nice number. Even the free version is very good and offers many options that are improved a bit in the pro version. Blocksy is definitely recommended and it is not surprising that it has a practically flawless rating.
Let’s continue this Kadence versus Blocksy comparison with the Kadence Theme.
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.
Blocksy vs Kadence Conclusion
Kadence and Blocksy share a lot. Both offer a free version that is extremely user-friendly and have many active installations. Both have stunning demo designs that are also nice for building shops. Blocksy is my favourite here, as it has everything that Kadence does better and loads faster.