Blocksy Theme Review: Amazing WordPress Theme
Blocksy theme is a relatively new theme but it might be the best and most customizable theme you can find.
There are several great free WordPress themes and I have my favorite ones. But Blocksy stands out among them with its little differences.
Like many other free WordPress themes, Blocksy theme is totally free which can be downloaded from the WordPress themes repository. It also has a pro version with additional features.
Also Read: Kava Theme Review
This theme was created and is maintained by two developers – Sergiu Radu and Andrei Glingeanu. They have very good documentation on the website and also you can see all the changes and updates they have ever made.
Now, let’s review the Blocksy theme and see why it is a great free WordPress theme.
Overview
First of all, let’s talk about what the Blocksy theme is in general and what features it has.
As I said, it was created by two developers and it was created a couple of years ago. But in this short period of time, it really became one of the best themes.
The theme works with all the major page builders – Elementor, Gutenberg, Brizy, and Beaver Builder. It is a fully-responsive theme.
Blocksy is a fast theme, eCommerce & translation ready, and has very clean code. And also, you can control when JavaScript code is loaded. It is great for speed.
It is built with modern technologies such as React, WebPack, Babel, PHP 7. It is a very modern theme with a great development team.
They have great documentation on their website. It allows you to understand Blocksy and how to use it. Also, you can see every update on the changelog section.
Also Read: Top 7 Starter Themes
If you want to modify core and make Blocksy custom, you can download a child theme. You can find the tutorial here.
You can promote the Blocksy theme and get paid with the affiliate program. They have a 30-day cookie and you can earn up to 30%.
Now, we know a little about Blocksy and it’s time to dive in and find out its features and options.
Customization
One of the most important things in free themes is customization. And Blocksy is very solid in this section. It is a very customizable theme.
First of all, it is very clean and well organized. It’s divided into sections. You have general options, posts & pages, social, analytics, and core.
It makes navigation easier. Not many themes offer this type of clean interface.
You can tweak general settings such as layouts, buttons, sidebars, typography, performance, etc.
One of my favorite features is the header & footer builder. It is built in the customizer and you can create any kind of header or footer. You can add buttons, menus, social, etc.
A great feature is color palettes. Blocksy theme allows you to create three different color palettes. Each palette consists of 5 colors. So, you can set colors for accent, background, button, text, etc.
What this allows you is that you can easily change colors for different elements from one place. And you can have three different color palettes for your websites.
Blocksy is great for blogs because it has several great options for blog design.
For the archive page, you can choose between 5 different structures and change how they look and behave.
For single blog posts, you can choose four layouts, change the content area style, show or hide different elements, and more.
Also, you can modify author and search pages separately which is a cool option. Blocksy allows you to create really custom website for free.
Also, you can customize general things like logo, menu, social links, and you can insert Google Analytics code straight into customizer. I don’t know any other free theme that allows this option.
So, Blocksy is perhaps the most customizable free WordPress you can find. At least I know of.
Speed
Now, let’s talk about how fast the Blocksy theme is. Because speed is one of the most important when we talk about WordPress themes. If a theme is slow, then nothing else matters.
On the website, they say that Blocksy is a lightning-fast theme. That is great but let’s test it ourselves.
I used GTmetrix for this speed test and I made 3 different tests:
- Clean Test – Just Blocksy theme. Clean pages with no plugins installed.
- Gutenberg Test – Test with a starter template using Gutenberg.
- Elementor Test – Starter template built with Elementor.
I didn’t use any caching plugin because I wanted to know how it handles page builders. Let’s see the results.
Also Read: Elementor vs Gutenberg: Speed Test
The Clean Test showed amazing results. Blocksy is really a fast theme. Performance and structure had a 100% score and LCP of 0.6s which is an amazing result. The page size was just 65.8KB and a total of 10 requests.
The Gutenberg Test results were also very good. Without caching it had 97% of performance and LCP of 1s. The request went up to 31 and the page size grew to 692KB. Page loaded in 1.6s and this is without any optimization.
Although Elementor Test results weren’t as good as others, it was still great. Performance – 84%, structure – 99%, and LCP – 1.6s. The page size was 740KB, total requests were 59, and the page loaded in 2.2s. Really great results for Elementor.
This test really showed us that Blocksy is a very fast and clean WordPress theme that works great with page builders. And don’t forget that I didn’t use any optimization or caching plugin.
Of course, Elementor wasn’t as fast as Gutenberg because it is a more heavy builder. It adds additional code. That is one downside of Elementor but everything can be improved with cache and other optimization tweaks.
But we can say that Blocksy is one of the fastest themes out there and it is free. If you want to have a fast website, you can definitely use the Blocksy theme.
Companion Plugin
Another cool feature of Blocksy is its companion plugin. It’s free and you can install it from the WordPress plugins repository. It allows you to control settings from one place.
From this dashboard, you can go to specific customizer sections. Also, from here you can install starter templates.
Also, there is great extensions section where you can activate different options. You can show cookies, integrate to MailChimp and show subscription form, display top posts, etc.
This plugin also offers a list of plugins you can use with the Blocksy theme. Some are for Gutenberg and some for Elementor.
And also from this dashboard, you can see all the updates that were made to Blocksy from the start to date. It shows updates, fixes, and new options.
This is a great companion for Blocksy and it is highly recommended to be installed.
Starter Templates
Blocksy has one of the most beautiful and well-designed starter templates you can find. They are not just simple starter templates. Very well designed and ready to use.
However, they don’t have many templates. The library consists of 7 different templates for different types of websites. But all of them are very high-quality templates.
I hope they will add new templates to their library. Now they have templates for blog, reviews, shop, business, charity, travel, and app landing page.
But not every template works with every page builder. Some work with Elementor, some with Gutenberg, and some with both. Also, some of them work with Brizy.
Also Read: Top 10 Elementor Templates
Blocksy uses different additional plugins to build these templates. When you install the template, it automatically installs the required plugins.
I really love their templates but the only downside is that the library is not big. But hope they will add more very soon.
Blocksy Premium
Now, if you want to have more options then you have an option to buy a premium version of the Blcoksy theme. It adds more features and options.
A premium adds some amazing features for customizers and also they have features for WooCommerce.
With a Blocksy theme pro version, you get an enhanced header & footer builder, pro elements for the footer & header, advanced menu, custom sidebars, local Google fonts, and much more.
You can add elements like language switcher, widgets, dividers in headers. Also, it comes with hooks that allow you to create custom designs and insert them whenever you want.
WooCommerce features include floating cart, off-canvas cart & filter, gallery slider, new layouts, and more.
You get great additional features with a pro version which allows you to create beautiful, fast, and custom websites without additional plugins.
Pricing
Blocksy theme offers very simple pricing plans. And it is not an expensive theme. And if we think about the features it offers, it’s a very affordable premium theme.
It has two pricing options – annual & lifetime. So, you can buy it for a year or pay once and have it forever. And each option has three plans.
Personal plan is for one site license, Professional gives you the ability to use it on 5 websites, and Agency gives you unlimited licenses.
If you want to build a website for yourself, then a personal plan is a great solution. But if you build websites for clients, then the agency is the solution.
You can cancel or upgrade to any plan anytime and also, they offer a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Conclusion
For me, the Blocksy theme is one of the most powerful, diverse, and very customizable free WordPress themes with amazing features. It is a clean, fast, and modern theme. Works great with page builders and WooCommerce. Has beautiful templates, however, the library is very small.
You can create beautiful websites for free and for more options you can upgrade to a pro version anytime. Blocksy theme offers very affordable pricing plans. I highly recommend this theme to everyone.