Ohio 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. Ohio vs Salient, 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 Ohio comparison with the Ohio Theme.
The Ohio Theme
The Ohio theme is still very new compared to other themes in the top sales on the Themeforest marketplace. Where most top themes came out between 2013 and 2015 is Ohio from the beginning of 2020. So the theme made advances very quickly, which is due to a number of points, we will come back to that in a moment.
Ohio Theme's Rating
A rating of 4.85 out of 5 can measure itself with the rating of the best themes on Themeforest. Ohio not only has a good rating but also good sales figures for a fairly new theme. The theme will certainly rise even further, they do a lot of good.
Ohio's Page Builders
Look, here we immediately have something that the builders of the theme do very well. They don’t come with a sloppy own page builder but use 2 very reputable page builders in Elementor and WP-Bakery. As a professional web designer I prefer to work with the best page builders out there and not always with someone else I don’t know by heart. I assume others think the same.
Fast loading Times
In addition to very cleanly written code, incredibly fast loading times are a must for themes these days. The fastest theme I know is Astra, but nowadays all top-selling themes are very fast. The Ohio theme scores very well in this area and can compete with the best.
In order to quickly display content in browsers also on mobile layouts, image sets must be prepared so as not to have to show oversized images. Ohio does all this perfectly.
Webshops with Ohio Theme
Also a must nowadays if you offer a theme, is that it works perfectly with the Woocommerce plugin to be able to build shops with it. In addition, buyers of Woo-Themes like to see beautiful extra features for shops such as Ajax Cart, Swatches, a nicely working Currency Switcher, Sticky Products and more. With Ohio you are in the right place in this regard, the theme gives very good thought to the shopping functions and has it all.
Ohio Theme and Blogging
The Ohio Theme also allows one to build great blogs. We are slowly finding out that Ohio is a fast riser because the theme is very all-round and has all the important things in it in a cool way.
Ohio theme review: Demos
By its own admission, Ohio Theme has 50+ full site demos as well as many pre-built sections that you can use anywhere on your site.
325+ Elements
The combined number of widgets or elements for Elementor and WP-Bakery are over 325. This includes standard elements and custom/new ones by Ohio/Figma.
Menu-Styles for Ohio
Ohio has ready-made menus that you can set up in your website with 1 click. Further adjustments can then be made, but this is usually not necessary. So the Ohio theme has its own header builder shines. The strange thing is that it is in Elementor, the page builder that uses the theme. At least they don’t advertise it.
Portfolios
Ohio is not very extensive for portfolios, but it has not been forgotten either. I would definitely use a different theme for a portfolio site but Ohio can be used if you are not too demanding.
Font Styles in Ohio Theme
Something that is really well arranged in this theme are the font styles. You can use virtually all Google, Adobe and other fonts in your websites without having to upload anything.
Ohio Theme Review Conclusion
The Ohio Theme is a complete theme, exactly what we thought from the start in this review based on the beautiful rating. The 2 page builders in it are very good, and the theme also offers everything to create any type of website. The theme will certainly be improved in upgrades for years to come. Ohio is definitely recommended, although there are much better themes of course.
Salient vs Ohio Conclusion
Ohio 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.