Ella and Phlox are both highly popular webshop themes. Both themes can be used for the construction of very nicely looking webshops. Ella (Shopify) vs Phlox (WordPress), which is the better theme? We start with Ella which does not mean it would be better.
The Ella Theme
The Ella theme came on the market in 2014 and has not been sitting still since then. The theme has become the best-selling theme for shopify on Themeforest. It could well be the best-selling theme at all for Shopify since Debutify, an even more successful theme, has not been out for very long.
Ella Theme's Rating
Many people rely on the rating of others when they buy a product. The average rating that the Ella Theme has built up over the years is 4.81 out of 5. This is an impressive rating for themes, regardless of which CMS.
Ella Theme's Loading Speed
I just did a speedtest myself for the demo shown on Themeforest and you can see the results below. Of course that is not an optimal situation within the Themeforest website, but I could not discover any site of theirs.
They themselves give much better results for their speed than those that came out from my test. You can see this pictured below. These results can certainly be true under optimal conditions such as very good server and cache plugin.
Ella Theme Homepage Demos
The Ella theme offers more than enough variety to choose your homepage. When building a shop, full site demos are of course not necessary. The number of 50+ well-maintained demo layouts should certainly be sufficient.
The Ella-Theme is "Mobile First"
Mobile menu, discount for bundles, Quick Shopping, Quick Cart Editing.
Mobile-optimized menus are the best. This prevents customers feeling overwhelmed by too many menu options.
Discounts for bundles. Your store can offer maximum value to customers by offering upsell/cross-sell features, rather than limiting them to products they already have.
Quick Shopping gives buyers an easy and powerful way to shop online right from their homepage or category page.
Quick cart editing is a great way for buyers to modify products in their side cart. It simplifies the complex process of switching to cart pages to change other variants.
Increase your site's Revenue
Below you see a hypothetical situation how your website can grow into a great success in the coming year. My personal opinion is that only by using this theme that will certainly not happen. The best Shopify theme I know for revenue is by far the Debutify theme.
Many different Headers & Footers
Choose from a whole range of beautiful footers and headers. With a few simple clicks you have a completely different header. Different headers and footers can also be used in different parts of the shop.
8 different Mega-Menu styles
Mega menus are in vogue. It gives a website or webshop a professional look and everything is easy to find for visitors. Unfortunately, mega-menus can only be filled for medium to very large shops with a lot of content.
Product Bulk Editor
The Ella theme has integrated a bulk editor for the products. Very handy, because of course you don’t want to make product by product adjustments to, for example, your prices. And especially not if you have more than 1000 products in your shop.
Nice features in the Ella Theme
The Ella theme is full of them, but I’m not going to list them all here. Below are a few nice features that the Ella theme offers. These kinds of features make your work easier, make shopping more convenient for your customers and generate more sales.
Brands Alphabet
Gone are the days of searching for logos in Google and making them all the same size in Photoshop and displaying them on your site via a carousel plugin. The Ella Brands Alphabet probably has all the logos you are looking for ready-made available. This saves you a lot of time.
Languages and Currencies
Many webshops use multiple languages and currencies. The Ella theme shows this very nicely and everything works in one go without having to tune everything for it. Very nice.
“Before you leave” (below) is a nice feature that a lot of professional shops are using. If someone tries to leave your website, this will not be possible and a pop up will show some offer.
Ella Theme Review Conclusion
I’m going to put an end to this Ella theme review. I assume you got a good impression, this is a very cool theme. The Ella theme has everything and more for building a successful webshop, and it is not for nothing that it is one of the best-selling themes for Shopify. If you like to know more about the Ella theme, read on on their own website. Recommended!
Let’s continue this Phlox vs Ella comparison with the Phlox Theme.
The Phlox Theme
As a matter of fact this website you are looking at right now, I built it with Phlox Premium and Elementor. I can tell you right away that this is a great theme, but we’re going through all the points of the theme so slowly. Phlox was launched back in 2013, a golden age for WP themes.
Phlox Themes' Rating
The Phlox Theme has a free version with a rating of 4.8 out of 5 as seen above. The premium theme has an average rating of 4.66 out of 5. With these figures, the Phlox theme is among the best rated themes on Themeforest.
Loading Speed
The Phlox theme has impressive loading times as can be seen below in the 4 completed tests. However, there are faster themes, such as Astra. Such fast loading times are always achieved with an elite cache plugin.
Phlox's Page Builder
Phlox is a so-called Elementor Theme, which means built to support Elementor. Building the website practically only happens with Elementor. What I needed Phlox for was a beautiful demo website from which I could start my site. The demos of Elementor Pro itself I found a bit disappointing.
160+ extra Widgets in Elementor
Purchasing Elementor Pro is made completely unnecessary by the many extra widgets offered by Phlox within the page builder, 160+ to be precise. An unprecedented number of extra widgets which offers practically unlimited possibilities.
A Second Page Builder
You also get the Bakery page builder as a tuned version with about 60 extra widgets in it by Phlox.
Building a Blog
We call the structure of this website a blog. If you click on “Blog” in the menu or on “Compare Themes” you will see the blog layout. There are dozens of settings what people do and don’t want to show in the items. My experience with the Phlox theme for blogs is very good, this site is like my baby everything works so well. So if you want to build a blog, Phlox is definitely a good choice.
Phlox offers a variety of layouts and options to help you become a professional blogger, or just to get started in the blogging world. You can do everything with blogging. Phlox uses best practices in typography design to ensure that content is easily readable on all devices. Phlox supports all types of blogging, including grid, masonry and timeline. It also covers layouts such as tile, land and classic.
Phlox Theme Review: Starter Sites
I just mentioned that I had selected Phlox on its beautiful demo websites, in total there are 190+. These come in different specializations such as blogs, shops, corporate and much more. The layouts are of extremely high quality. As far as I’m concerned, Phlox is even undervalued with its rating.
Reuse Sections
Being able to save and reuse sections at lightning speed is a great feature. It says “Exclusive” in the corner but there are many more themes that have this.
Phlox: Global Colors
The theme uses 3 basic colors that are used throughout the site. If you adjust it, it will automatically adjust across the entire site. Doesn’t seem like a real exclusive feature to me, but it’s certainly practical.
Headers and Footers
The Phlo theme offers a complete collection of options for both footers and headers. There will certainly be something to your liking for your website. You can make further adjustments to your chosen design with the Header & Footer Builder.
Phlox Theme Review Conclusion
I assume that you have received a very positive impression of Phlo by now, this is a great theme. I can’t copy all the information here, not 1 on 1. If your interest has been piqued, read on on their own website. As far as I’m concerned, Phlox is one of the better themes on Themeforest and highly recommended.
Phlox vs Ella Conclusion
These are both great themes, and both are also great for E-commerce. As good as Phlox is, the Ella theme is simply one of the very best themes available for building webshops. It is really hard to make a decision, I give Ella a slight edge. For any type of website other than web shops, I obviously prefer Phlox. Of course these themes use different CMS systems, so if you have a preference for WordPress or Shopify that will also have to be taken into account when deciding which theme is more suitable for you.