Newspaper and Salient 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. Newspaper vs Salient, which is the better theme? We start with Newspaper which does not mean it would be better.
The Newspaper Theme
The Newspaper theme has been around since 2013 and therefore belongs to the established order. Over time, all the bugs disappear from themes and a very good product remains. This theme specializes in building news sites, blogs and is ultimately a bit multipurpose. A lot can be done with this theme.
Newspaper Theme Rating
The average rating of 4.82 out of 5 is particularly high. Since Newspaper is a niche theme, this indicates that the theme is almost perfect for building blogs and news websites. Newspaper is also very suitable for web shops.
Newspaper's Demo Websites
I count a total of 160 starter sites, also called demo websites. The quality of the demos is so good and spread over all kinds of different niches that this number is more than enough. There are themes that offer much more, but the quality is very important.
Demos for Webshops
Newspaper offers a total of 8 demo websites for webshops that can be installed with 1 click. These are not the first best designs but very neat looking layouts.
Newspaper Theme Review: Shop Builder
Newspaper now also has its own Shop Builder, just like Divi has had its WooBuilder for years. All copied from Divi, but it works well. This shopbuilder is equipped with 27 special elements for shops. With this you can set up your cart and other shop pages exactly as you had in mind.
TagDiv PageBuilder
Here we come to a feature that can certainly be improved, but I wonder if they will do it because they are a bit proud of their own page builder. Of course, it cannot be compared with a DiviBuilder or Elementor. This is practically the only thing I don’t like about Newspaper, the page builder is a weakness. I must honestly say that it is not a bad page builder but it can just be better.
Performance Optimizer
You can see here link what exactly the optimizer does for you, which is impressive. This used to be impossible to achieve in a WordPress website without being an expert in this field. Now several themes have this type of optimizers and they make very fast loading websites with them. The fastest theme always remains Astra, regardless of what other themes say about themselves.
Header- and Footerbuilder
For a good theme it is nowadays a requirement to have a header builder and a footer builder, since all top themes have this. Newspaper certainly belongs to the top and of course has this too. I will not go into this further.
Newspaper's Pop-up's
Not all themes have this much anymore. Newspaper lets you use an unlimited number of popups on your pages. Purchasing pop-up plugins is no longer necessary. It is true that a service like PopTin is much more flexible and better, I prefer these kinds of services as popups bring in money they are very important.
Newspaper Theme Review: Conclusion
Let’s wrap up this Newspaper Review. The theme has much more to offer, but I will not list the complete package here. If your interest has been piqued, you can read more on their own site. My opinion about this theme is very positive, it can and has everything one needs to build a good site. I would like to see that the demos can also be edited with Elementor in the future, that would improve the theme considerably. Highly recommended.
Let’s continue this Salient vs Newspaper comparison with the Salient Theme.
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
Newspaper vs Salient Conclusion
Newspaper or Salient is not that big of a difference. Both themes have many and beautiful demos. 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.