Salient and Bridge are both sold through the same marketplace and are therefore direct competitors. That is certainly the case since both themes can be used for the construction of very nicely looking webshops. Salient vs Bridge, which is the better theme? We start with Salient which does not mean it would be better.
The Salient Theme
The Salient theme was already released in 2013 and therefore belongs to the old guard of WordPress themes. It is still in the top 5 on Themeforest today which is a very good sign. So we are dealing with a top theme here. The theme is multipurpose but with an emphasis on webshop construction. Let’s start quickly with this Salient review.
Salient's Ratings
Salient has a rating of 4.81 out of 5 as shown in the screenshot above. That is, to say the least, a great rating that few themes have. This is the average rating of votes cast over almost 10 years. This indicates that the theme is stable and will have few or no errors.
Salient + Woocommerce
Salient is very suitable and offers many great options for building webshops. Below is a good example of the new layouts for your products. Photos in the form of a gallery where the product information is always visible. Modern 2-column layouts allow product images to be seen efficiently and keep the information and buying options visible at all times.
Gallery Images
Or this new Woocommerce feature. Your users can scroll through product images without having to stop at the thumbnails and information.
Scrollable Images
As seen in the video below, there is a “show filters” button which makes searching easier. You don’t have to choose between sidebars or full-page layouts for your products. Give your customers the ability to filter when they need it and keep your products focused until then.
New Filer Lay-out
I’m not going to list all Salient’s Woocommerce features here. Take it from me that Salient is a frontrunner in Woocommerce possibilities and if you are going to build a shop, Salient is definitely worth considering. More Woocommerce info can of course be found on their own site.
Salient Review: Demos
The site for Salient talks about 400+ templates they offer. I’m assuming that’s a combination of sections and full site demos. I count a total of 33 full site demos for Salient. That is certainly not a large number, but the demos are really beautiful, time has been spent on them. The demos shown below are demos for webshops.
Salient's Pagebuilder
As a page builder, Salient uses a high-quality version of the WP-Bakery page builder, an old very reliable and good page builder. This visual front-end Builder is tuned with many extra widgets what brings the total amount of widgets to 65+. Personally, I think they would do well to make their demos available for Elementor, the most popular page builder at the moment.
Responsive Editing
As befits a real page builder, you can edit responsively if desired. You can make separate adjustments to the design for mobile phone, iPad and Desktop. Of course all popular page builders can do this, but I’ll just point it out.
Portfolios
Salient is also a very good theme for those of you who want to build a portfolio website. The theme offers countless different layouts for full width, with column and the separate portfolio pages.
Special Features
Divi is no longer the only theme that is packed with features. Most themes have copied the majority of these features and benefit from this well. I’m not going to list all the features here, that would make this article way too extensive which is not necessary. If you want to see more, check out their own site.
Mix text with Images
Scribble Text
Salient's Header Lay-Outs
With just 1 click you can install another header. You can choose from a wide variety of header menus as shown below. Salient also has a header builder that allows you to make further customizations to your header.
Salient Theme Review Conclusion
The conclusion of my review is that Salient is highly recommended and as far as I’m concerned is in line with the 3 top themes on Themeforest. It has everything a good website needs and more. The things you can do with texts in Salient are really great and the theme is perfect for building a shop. The only problem with Themeforest themes is that you would have to buy a separate license for each of your sites. This while themes such as Astra and Divi are just as good and extensive and used on unlimited sites
Let’s continue this Salient vs Bridge comparison with the Bridge Theme.
The Bridge Theme
In this Bridge theme review we look at how this theme scores on a number of important points. Which page builders are used, what are the features for webshops, how fast does it load, and what other striking features are there. Bridge was launched in 2014 by Qode, a Power Elite Author.
Bridge Theme Rating
A good theme is immediately recognized by a good rating that has been built up over the course of at least a few years. That is more than the case with the Bridge theme. With a rating of 4.78 out of 5, it ranks highest on the Themeforest marketplace.
Bridge's Pagebuilders
The demos of the Bridge theme can be edited with 2 well-known page builders, namely Elementor and WP-Bakery. I definitely prefer the former, although I also like working with the Bakery page builder. Bridge doesn’t target Gutenberg at all, which is a good thing. Gutenberg is a complete disaster and will never be a success.
Bridge Review: Demos
The Bridge theme comes with more than 610 demo websites. About 250 of these were made for Elementor, and a sloppy 350 for WP-Bakery pagebuilder. A good theme comes with many and well-styled demos and you are in the right place with Bridge. All these demos can be easily installed with 1 click, then you can continue working on them with your favorite page builder.
Bridge Review: Headers
A beautiful collection with all kinds of differently styled headers has been well thought out. I hope everything on the screenshot shows well, otherwise go to their own site and check out the layouts there.
Bridge Review: Blog
The variety in blog layouts is also striking, this has also been well thought out. The Bridge theme is also ideal for building blog websites. View the various options that Bridge offers below.
Bridge Review: Portfolio
I must honestly say that the Bridge theme is suitable for practically any type of website. For corporate websites, for shops, for blogs, and for very specific niches such as travel, education or music sites. Below is a screenshot of a 4-column portfolio layout. Bridge also offers great versatility and options when it comes to portfolios.
Bridge Webshops
With Bridge you can build very good professional shops. You have tons of beautiful shop designs and shopping widgets at your disposal to make a success of your webshop.
Special Features
Bridge is packed with special features and I’m not going to list them all here. I show three of them below, you can view the rest on the Bridge website.
Build beautiful graphs with the Bridge Line Graph feature.
For your online business the Bridge Pricing Calculator will always come in handy.
The Bridge cross-fade images gives a different view of images.
Bridge Theme Review Conclusion
This Bridge theme review is coming to an end, I’ll give you my overall opinion about it. There is no denying that Bridge is a great theme. One can really build any type of website with it, it has several good page builders in it and has a lot of good demo websites. Furthermore, it has many wonderful extra features and settings so that everything can be adjusted without technical knowledge.
Salient vs Bridge Conclusion
Salient or Bridge is not that big of a difference. Both themes have many and beautiful demos that can be edited with different page builders. Both themes are more than excellent for building e-commerce websites and load very quickly. If I had to have a favorite it would be Salient I think. It has some more gadgets and demos. Both themes require a separate license for each site on which you want to install it. If you have several sites, it is probably more economically sensible to work with Astra or Divi that can be used on unlimited sites and are also more stable themes.