We compare two of the most popular themes for the construction of webshops of the moment here. Both of these themes only have a pro version. Salient vs Porto, 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 Porto vs Salient comparison with the Porto.
The Porto Theme
Porto ThemeThe WordPress version of the Porto theme was released in 2015. This is in response to the more than popular HTML5 theme of the same name, which has been around since 2013. It didn’t do them any harm because the WP version now ranks in the top 5 on the infamous Themeforest marketplace. In this Porto Review I quickly show you the most important features and gadgets of Porto.
Porto Theme: Ratings
The Porto Theme itself states that it has a 4.92 out of 5 rating, but as you can see below, it is even a little higher. This rating is good, but it must be said that Porto’s direct competitors (sold through the same marketplace) also score these kinds of figures. Those are all fantastic themes by the way. This rating has been built up over the period of 8 years, so they have constantly been doing well.
Porto Theme Review Demos
A total of 123 demo websites is a large number. It’s always nice to have a wide choice of different designs so that’s great. As you can see below, a large part of it is for web shops (42). There are demo dedicated to Gutenberg, Elementor and WP-Bakery page builder. That means you can immediately continue working on it or adjust things with those page builders.
Porto Theme Review: Woocommerce
Of course I can’t show 123 demos here, but you can see some of them in the image below. You can of course view the rest on their own site. The layout in the image below are all demos for shops, of which there are currently 42 in total. The designs are of high quality. This, in combination with the many features that Porto has for shops, makes it a breeze to build a beautiful professional webshop.
Porto Theme's Page Builders
I mentioned it before, Porto works with 3 different page builders and demos are also available for that. We are talking about the Elementor, the WP-Bakery and the Gutenberg editors.
Porto Theme's Elements
There are many more elements, but I don’t want to show them all here, below you can see a good selection from the range. The number of elements can easily be expanded even further with addon plugins that both Elementor and WP-Bakery have available from third parties in abundance.
Porto Theme Review: Speed
Of course, the Porto Theme can be loaded quickly in all browsers. Very important nowadays since without a fast website you will not be found well in Google, and visitors would leave your website early. Therefore make sure that you always have one of the best cache plugins installed.
Porto Theme Review: Library
Porto Studio is the name of the template library, filled with section, calls-to-actions and more. You can build pages at lightning speed by loading individual sections into your design. It is also possible to grab sections of the complete demo websites that you like.
Porto's Page HeaderBuilder
In the video below you can see how quickly you can work with the page header builder. It offers unlimited possibilities to style your header exactly as you had in mind. Of course, also use the section from the librarian that I just showed you. Click op de Play Button!
Porto Theme Review Conclusion
Cool that you read my Porto theme review to the end. As a web designer I have both the HTML and the WordPress version of Porto in my arsenal. The Porto theme is simply one of the best themes for building shops, although there are quite a lot of them these days. The theme has no real shortcomings and you can also build other types of websites with it, although I would certainly prefer Divi or Astra for that, which offer much more value for money with the unlimited site usage policy.
Porto vs Salient Conclusion
Salient or Porto 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.