First off, these are 2 great themes for different reasons. For quality code and experience, GeneratePress wins out. Tom, the GeneratePress developer, is a very talented and experienced developer who is passionate about every line of code in his theme. I have never experienced anyone more committed to making a quality theme than him. OceanWP is a more feature rich theme, more options, but more complexity to it. If you were only going to use the free versions of either, OceanWP is what you should choose. Its strength is WooCommerce integration. Both themes have very good and fast support. If you were going to be purchasing one of them, GeneratePress offers more value at a much better price tag. So I can really pick a winner here, but can suggest you make your decision based on what your plan is.
GeneratePress Vs OceanWP 2024
by Adam Preiser updated Feb 23, 2024
GeneratePress is a lightweight theme that can be extended with a premium pack of extensions. It will work with all page builders and has the most extensive documentation of any theme.
OceanWP is a WordPress theme with innovative features and is the most generous free theme I have ever seen. There is a suite of extensions that can be purchased which will extend the theme even further.
GeneratePress Pros
- Theme Truly Built For Performance
- Developers Love The Hooks & Filters
- People Love Their Support
- Extensive Documentation
OceanWP Pros
- Fully Responsive
- eCommerce Ready
- Fully Customizable
- Advanced Mega Menu
- RTL Support
- Free Templates
GeneratePress Cons
- Skip The Free Version, It’s Very Limited
- Opinionated On What a Theme Should Do
- Not As Many 3rd Party Integrations Or Options
- Some Parts Feel Dated, It’s a 6 Year Old Theme
OceanWP Cons
- Too Many Advertisements In The Free Version
- Too Many Plugins Are Required To Install
- Slow “Out Of The Box” When Compared To Other Themes
- Poorly Organized Options Panel
- Default Styling Is Dated
- Demo Sites Are Dated
Ease Of Use
GeneratePress is easy to use but the options could be modernized and better organized.
Ease Of Use
OceanWP is not as easy to use as other themes that are available primarily because the options are all over the place.
Price / Value
The free version is more of a demo with limited options, but the Pro has most of what you would need.
Price / Value
Rating is based on the free version. The Pro version is more expensive than all other Pro themes.
Support
GeneratePress is very cognizant of supporting their customers and users and people seem to love it.
Support
The support experience is really good. There have been issues that linger and are not resolved in a timely manner.
32 thoughts on “GeneratePress Vs OceanWP”
Thanks for this post. Quite helpful! I recommended various themes for the Meetup groups I organize, and agree that GeneratePress is great choice for those who want to do development work and not have theme interfering, especially when using a layout builder like Elementor.
Please elaborate on your statement statement that OceanWP has “Too Many Advertisements In The Free Version” Are those advertisements internal, on the WP backend dashboard, or are they facing outward where my visitors can see them?
They are in the back end of WordPress. So if you or your client log in to the site, there are banner advertisements and data collection happening.
Hey Adam, I read this article and found very useful especially for me. I need a favor from you, let me tell you that just 2 weeks ago I started my own WordPress website, and just because I’m a newbie I don’t know much about a good them so I took a random free WordPress theme and now I’m facing performance issues. I just want to know that If I changed my theme now does it will affect my SEO or is it ok to change the theme at this moment. Well, I’m waiting for your reply.
There won’t be any performance impact. Check out the free Kadence Theme, its VERY fast, one of the fastest and has more features than both of these themes. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dwn20GiePPQ
I’ve been using the pro-version of Generate Press now for over a year. I discovered while looking for a light weight multi-purpose theme as many that I tried were bloated with configuration hell. GP has plenty of customization without the bloat and overriding or adding styles is well supported. In addition, being able to use only the modules you need keeps the site easier to manage. Lastly the Elements module is just a fantastic way to create custom headers, layouts and hooks. The only drawback is a limited selection of demo sites. Best import I’ve used though.. Peace
Adam,
Not using WooCommerce but EDD. Elementor I think for a page builder so what theme that case would you recommend?
Thanks
Hi could you tell me which of these themes would be best if you want to use the Gutenberg Page Builder? I see oceanwp requires elementor. Can it work with Gutenberg only or does it lose it’s charm without Elementor?
I am struggling to figure out which is the best theme to use if my client wants to use Gutenberg as her page builder. Hope you have some thoughts on this? Thanks
Check our the Kadence Theme, it was made for Gutenberg.
I bought Ocean WP theme to create 3 websites, as promised, however, the extensions are valid for only one website. So, I asked for a refund because it wasn’t clear before I took the decision to buy.
Hi newbie here. I created web sites and pages many years ago using html and basic, lol but havent done much of that since about 1998 so. lots changed in ways its hard to comprehend.
i have multiple projects and use multiple platforms to sell various items and i am also a homeless shelter and help create jobs and try to give some people alittle better life.
so i need my main site to have info about me and mine but also refer to numerous other sites like etsy, ebay, mercari, poshmark etc. but also we make and sell stuff ourselves. i mean i am small potatoes and anticipate being over the moon if i can make five sales a week of our local stuff.
anyway lots of pictures and mostly will link to affiliates and ebay etc. but i have square or paypal buttons that are easily plug in for most any theme.
i had heard great stuff about generate theme for 49 dollars i could use for everything i could want and it is quick and easy mobile display.
So generate will do what i want? ive done a few with wp and i like it but usually it bogs down with all the recommmended plug ins and its a bloated cow of a site.
You would be in good shape using Astra, GeneratePress, or OceanWP. I do find if you want to sell stuff on your website, you may be better off with Astra.
Hi Adam Thanks for the post! I’ve been using OceanWP for months now with a very basic blog setup.
Do you have any tutorial on how to use elementor and OceanWP to customize my blog to look a bit better and fancier?
Thanks!
Yea I have this video right here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ge4UEGHX4
Hi Adam,
I have a few questions:
1. I’m creating a lifestyle blog. Considering this, I think OceanWP is a better option than GenerateWP since it offers more features to make the site look fancier. What do you think?
2. Another question: does the free version of OceanWP support ads and banners on the website?
3. If OceanWP offers all advanced features in the FREE version, what is the whole point of purchasing it? Does the PRO version offer any extra benefits? I don’t see any.
Looking forward to your response. Thanks.
Yea if you prefer OceanWP I say go for it. And they give too much away for free, but it works out good for users. No theme supports ads per se, you will need to add a plugin for that.
Hi Adam,
I am looking for a ready-to-use theme in which I can load my portfolio of high-resolution photographs. I understand that both GeneratePress and OceanWP are fast-loading themes, but only OceanWP shows a full-screen photo site in its Demos. Which theme would you recommend for my use? Do I still need to purchase plugins such as WP Rocket to optimize the speed?
Keep in mind that any OceanWP theme is using Elementor, so whatever you are seeing is not really OceanWP. In that situation, you can use either theme.
Hi Adam, will Elementor slow down the loading time?
Not anymore than adding content manually.
Hi Adam,
If anything about wp, i run to your youtube channel to see if you have talked about it before. 😀
anyways.
Im about to build a woocommerce store page. Its a quite new style of displaying products on Home page..
eg: 3 column banners with add to cart button, shop page side bar with categories listed so on.
do you think GeneratePress pro and elementor pro is the right choice?
Well this more has to do with your choice of page builder. You would need Elementor Pro to pull that off.
HI Adam, If I already have Elementor Pro and use the free Ocean WP will I have all of the features listed on the paid version of Ocean WP? It’s kind of hard to find an answer, thought I’d ask a guru, thanks.
Hey so the only way to get any of the paid features found only in the paid version of OceanWP, is to purchase OceanWP. That being said, they put so much in the free version, I am not so sure what the purpose of buying the paid version other than to reward the developer.
Thanks for such an article.
I did buy GeneratePress after a long journey with shadow, Avada, Genesis and Divi. it gives the best score on my website on gtmetrix.
However, I have been exploring OceanWP recently. It is around 100kb larger than the same pages with GeneratePress, when measured on getmetrix. the number of requests are comparable.
However, I feel that OceanWP as a lot more options (e.g. social sharing buttons) that can easily exceed the 100kb difference if I used GeneratePress+sharing plugin..etc
I read a couple of reviews with concerns and inconfidence in the developer and maintenance of the theme.
So I am asking if there is a concern about the continuity of the development of this theme, or other well known issues?
The project I am building is a huge online resources library, with tens of thousands of posts, and I don’t want to started based on a questionable theme that will adversely affect it.
I appreciate if you elaborate a bit more on this point, as well as any other feedback you have regarding GeneratePress VS OceanWP.
Very much appreciated.
To me, OceanWP has shown itself to be a theme that going to stick around. I did and do have some reservations, but you can’t argue with the fact that a lot of people are having a lot of success with OceanWP. I do think that if things continue as they are, it will be around for some time. My only concern would be with Gutenberg coming out this year and the way themes are going to be built after it’s release will be significantly different. All current themes and plugins are going to have to rapidly adapt. You are going to see many plugins and themes end development. Themes and plugins coded from scratch and are build by talented developers will do fine.
Ultimately most of the heavy lifting is done with your page builder. Sure changing themes is a pain, but it’s a task that usually can be completed in a day. So the reasons you listed why you are considering not using GP are the same reasons I choose to use Astra. Whatever is going to get you from point a to point b the fastest.
Hi Adam, I am very interested in your thoughts on Gutenberg’s release potentially subverting Themes to the point of causing more minor developers to go out of business.
I cant see the team behind WordPress and Gutenberg releasing anything that would cause such a drastic scenario to eventuate?
Do you really think this could happen?
I know Nick Roach and Elegant Themes are watching closely and apparently attending meetings related to this.
My present project is a 1000+ page site that is quite complex and needs to be very feature rich and interactive.
We have purchased Astra Pro theme for the project to compare features and load speeds etc.
Along with exploring GeneratePress and OceanWP. From what I can gather Tom’s GeneratePress is also likely to be on solid ground with any major WordPress changes, due to his deep knowledge and working intimacy with WordPress. Do you think this is a fair assessment?
So far, GeneratePress appears to be the better theme overall, due to the load speed and intelligent design and set up of the customizer. As a WordPress novice, Toms way of laying things out in the back end/page set up options/customizer, just feels more intuitive than the other themes mentioned here. Its probably totally subjective and different strokes for different folks but that is my take on it.
Regarding GeneratePress and page builder’s, Tom has elegantly deigned demos and a few are specifically suited to Elementor and others Beaver Builder.
When setting up a new page inside GeneratePress, there are actually (comparatively) more options specific to page builders.
It would be good if you could also speed test these themes (via installing the demos) when you do these reviews?
Also if you looked at the features and premium features.
However, I can imagine its full on doing this and appreciate what you do.
Its enormously helpful.
My concerns are similar to those of Atef, given its a complex, long term project and my client will be investing significant resources into this, I am keen to make sure we choose the best tools for the project.
Any comment or feedback would be very much appreciated.
It’s hard to say what is going to happen with Gutenberg. It may just end up being a simple replacement for TinyMCE, or much more than that. It will be hard to say for another year or so.
As far as themes go, Astra is my personal pick between GeneratePress & OceanWP. I think you will fair fine with either of the 3, but Astra & GeneratePress because of they way they are coded will in theory preform better.
Am I the only person that sees a Generate Press Vs Generate Press comparison here?
I am very sorry James, there is a slight coding bug where every so often that happens. I just fixed it for this post.
If one to go by their individual demo SPEED (for what a Demo test is worth?) , OCEAN wipes GENERATE PRESS… an initial finding , but it can be a swayer unless both themes are personally sampled!
That’s interesting. OceanWP should run slower, but it looks like they have optimized their demo more.