Issue #133 Loop WP

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #133 of Loop WP!

Last week, we examined an ever-controversial topic, especially recently with the legal drama in WordPress, WPE, and “that” hosting page.

This week, we examine WordPress themes, the rapid rise of block themes, and how to choose a theme for your next project.

Let’s go! 👇

Before we continue, the voice of Brian, is no more. 😭

Sadly, in the future, my newsletters will no longer contain an audio version, as Beehiiv has removed the feature from their free and mid-tier plan.

1000 Themes in 1000 Days

On October 23, 2024, WordPress published a blog post titled “WordPress Community Creates 1,000 Block Themes in 1,000 Days.”

🧠 The Repository (an excellent WordPress newsletter) adds some extensive details, but there are some crucial points:

1. There were 536 block themes live as of October 22, 2023.

2. This number has increased by 457 since January 1, 2024.

3. The repository now hosts 12,984 themes, with block themes making up a growing share.

💡 Let’s look at those last two points again:

• An 86.6% increase in block-based themes in one year. **

• Only 7.7% of themes in the repository are block-based.

** (Initially, it took two years to get to 536 block-based themes)

Top Contributors and A Long Way To Go

Not surprisingly, the top contributor of block-based themes cited in The Repository newsletter is Automattic:

• Automattic (116 block themes)

• Creta Themes (41)

• VW Themes (39)

🤷‍♂️ Perhaps in January 2025, block-based themes will hit the 8% mark after three years.

However, three years to hit an 8% share of the theme repository for the future of WordPress doesn’t make for stellar reading (and none of these numbers includes active installs).

💡 Since the release of the first block-based theme in December 2020, it has taken almost four years to reach one-fifth of Matt Mullenweg’s goal of 5,000 block-based themes (which I don’t think will happen).

Hybrid Themes

🤦‍♂️ There are many potential reasons for the slow growth of block-based themes, and if you are involved in the WordPress community, friend, you will know what many of those are.

I won’t cover those reasons in this newsletter, but I do want to mention one potential reason: hybrid themes.

As Bill Erickson describes,

⚡️ With hybrid themes, there isn’t a clear divide between “classic” and block-based themes.

🧠 We’ve had hybrid themes for at least three years (almost as long as we’ve had blocks), and Frank Klein argues that there is “no wrong way” to build themes but suggests that before building any other theme type, try “block first”.

Choosing a WordPress Theme

Often, the sticking point for most people when starting with WordPress is choosing a good theme.

🤷‍♂️ Depending on your starting point, you might have a dramatically different experience with recommended themes:

• Self-hosted WordPress

• WordPress.com

• Other WordPress hosts (such as GoDaddy, InstaWP, Bluehost, etc.)

All of the starting points above display and recommend themes to users differently.

🚨 Your context and experience will matter too, friend:

• Are you building this website for you or a client?

• How easily can you customise a theme without code?

• Have you used the block editor before?

• Does Full Site Editing mean anything to you? 🤣

💰 Of course, budget matters, too and what about site speed?

Kinsta has a couple of good guides for choosing themes:

• How WordPress Themes Work and How They Make Design So Much Easier.

• How to Choose a WordPress Theme That Won’t Slow Down Your Site.

Themes I Recommend

🚨 None of the links below are affiliate links.

In no particular order, these are all themes I use either personally or for clients and are used based on different project criteria:

• GeneratePress (with GenerateBlocks)**

• Kadence

• Hello (generally used with Elementor)

• Bricks

• Ollie WP

• Rockbase

** GenerateBlocks can be used with any theme

That’s it for this week 👋

⏩ Next week, we will change things up with a niche WooCommerce topic.

🚨 This Google Doc has all the details if you’re interested in sponsoring the Loop WP Newsletter.

🎉 All slots are sold out before Christmas, but I am taking bookings for the New Year.

Weekly WordPress News & Tips

WordPress News & Tips are back, offering excellent and insightful content this week!

• One Month Left - Voting is now open for the WP Awards 2024. (WP Weekly)

• Project Giving Back - Supporting Charity with WordPress Black Friday 2024 & Cyber Monday (Layer WP)

• Live Recordings - The 2024 recordings from WordPress Accessibility Day are now live! (WordPress Accessibility Day)

• Refine the Detail - WordPress 6.7 is here! (WordPress)

• WooCommerce - View Customer Order History on Single Order Admin Page. (Business Bloomer)

• Relume - It’s not WordPress, but it’s so cool! A tool to prototype and inspire your designs. (WP Tuts)

• BFCM - Quick WooCommerce Optimisation Tips. (Remkus de Vries)

• Friday Night Project - The Premise here is that we can use a hybrid semantic + keyword + graph search, which should result in a much more accurate retrieval system. (James LePage)

• Down The Rabbit Hole - A Look At The WordPress Update API (Duane Storey)

• Orderly Ape - Orderly Ape is an open-source load testing project by Review Signal / WPHostingBenchmarks. The project is available on GitHub. (Review Signal)

• Interesting - Headless WordPress without WordPress. (Gato GraphQL)

• WooCommerce 9.4 - Supercharging the Product Collection block & more. (WooCommerce)

• Freelancing Impact - How Does Automattic vs WP Engine Impact Freelancers (The WP Minute)

• PressConf 2025 - The conference for professionals driving the WordPress economy. (PressConf)

• Must Watch/Listen - “The Plugin Directory: What Should Freemium Product Owners Do About WordPress.org” (WP Product Talk)

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,