We compare a few popular WordPress themes for the construction of websites of the moment here. PopularFX and Sydney have free- as well as a pro versions. Sydney vs PopularFX, which is the better theme? We start with Sydney which does not mean it would be better.
The Sydney Theme
In this Sydney theme review I will quickly show you the best features of this popular theme. The Sydney theme is made by aThemes, a company that only develops good themes. It is therefore certainly not surprising that the theme has a very good rating. Let’s start with that right away…
Sydney's Rating 4.9/5
In the image below you can see that the numbers Sydney gets are more than good. The average rating is 4.9 out of 5, with which the theme scores in the top compared to other themes. Sydney has a free and a pro version, both versions are discussed here.
Sydney Theme Speed
Having a fast loading website is a must these days. Visitors stay longer on your site and you are found better in Google. That is why themes are becoming faster and faster in recent years, otherwise they will not sell well. With Sydney you can take a deep breath because the theme is one of the fastest sites out there.
Sydney Theme's Demo Websites
Six months ago I wrote an article about Sydney for another website of mine. I see that in that short time, 8 extra demos have been added. The Sydney demo websites are well constructed and very well maintained.
Sydney Theme & Webshops
The number of demos for webshops is still 2, they should work on that as soon as possible in my opinion, that is below average. The standard Sydney shopping theme is beautifully minimalistic and can be used for just about anything. A good shop can certainly be built with Sydney, because all possible shopping features are available so that shops look professional and have all the gadgets such as quick view, ajax cart and wishlist.
If my theme were recommended by Elementor, I would also put it on the site everywhere. This gives a lot of confidence to the theme because that means something. It also means that the theme will work perfectly with the Elementor page builder.
Sydney Theme comes with Schema
More and more sites have Schema built in as it offers great benefits for your site when it comes to being found in Google. The Sydney theme also has this. Rich snippets help Google understand your pages better and often display them in search results in special ways. If you are a Schema enthusiast, check out Schema Pro which I also use on this website.
Sydney Theme Integrations
A theme is usually automatically compatible with most plugins, but there are some commonly used more complicated plugins that definitely require theme customization. The Sydney theme is completely prepared for these plugins. Think, for example, of the Google AMP plugin, which is free and necessary to offer Accelerated Mobile Pages. Other Plugins are Polylang, WPML and LMS. Sydney has so much more to offer then I can explain in this review.
Sydney Theme Review Conclusion
Sydney Theme review, my opinion: The Sydney theme is recommended by Elementor for a reason, it is a very nice theme to work with. That applies to the free and pro versions. The pro versions have a standard price for good themes, $69. You can use the theme on an unlimited number of sites for this. However, an even better offer is $99 for all themes from aThemes. You immediately have the popular Botiga and Airi theme + about 20 less well-known themes.
Let’s continue this PopularFX versus Sydney Review with the PopularFX Theme.
The PopularFX Theme
In this PopularFX theme review I will quickly show you the best features of this theme, for both the free and the premium version. This theme is highly ranked on wp.org and has over 100,000 active installs. Recently, the theme has again made a number of startling upgrades and are also discussed.
PopularFX's rating
I must honestly say there are themes with a better average rating like Astra, but with a 4.6 out of 5 rating, PopularFX is certainly in the 5% best rated themes on wordpress.org. The last time I wrote a review for PopularFX a year ago, the rating was 0.1 lower, so there is also an improvement.
PopularFX Starter Demos
On the PopularFX site they are called “Templates”. I usually call them Demos or Starter Sites, but these are about 1-click install designs. In its own words, PopularFX offers 350+ of these demos, an unprecedented number! Even the free version has hundreds of demos in every niche one can think of. There are very few themes that exceed these numbers.
PopularFX PageBuilder
PopularFX uses “Pagelayer” as basic editor, a Drag&Drop Visual Inline Pagebuilder that they developed themselves. Nowadays there are more and more themes that develop their own page builder. I must honestly say that I prefer to just work with the DiviBuilder or Elementor, but most of these page builders just work very well.
PageLayer Widgets
The Pagelayer Editor has a nice number of widgets, nothing impressive but certainly enough to build great sites with. There are a lot more widgets than the one in the image above, but I’m not going to show them all.
PopularFX Load Speed
Website visitors have little patience, so having a fast-loading site is a must. As can be seen in the image, PopularFX is very fast and thus certainly meets the requirements. These results were achieved with one of the best cache plugins out there.
PopularFX & Woocommerce
PopularFX theme is fully compatible with WooCommerce, which makes it easy to design an e-commerce website. It is easy to sell, manage and grow any product online. The theme also has a large number of demos especially for shops and together with the widgets in their page builder, you can certainly build a good shop with PopularFX.
PopularFX Review Conclusion
I am going to finish this PopularFX theme review. The theme has a good page builder, has a lot and quite good demos, loads quickly and meets all the requirements that a good theme must meet. The problem is the price. For less money you can purchase much better themes such as Divi or Astra and that is also for unlimited sites.
PopularFX versus Sydney Conclusion
Guys, let’s face it. PopularFX is a very good theme and basically has everything to build good sites and shops, but the Sydney theme looks better to me. It works with Elementor instead of PageLayer, a much better page builder and the price is also much better, especially if you purchase the themes in a package from aThemes.