Hello vs PopularFX Theme comparison [2023] 💥
HELLO vs POPULAR-FX
PopularFX vs HELLO, we compare these themes on loading speed, number of demos, quality of the demos, type of page builder they use and how easy they are to adjust. Both themes work perfectly with the Elementor page builder. Both themes are free themes, although PopularFX also has a pro version.
HELLO THEME (PopularFX vs Hello)
HELLO ELEMENTOR THEME REVIEW
In April 2020, Elementor released its own theme, the Hello Elementor theme. Not a bad idea because many people wondered which theme to use with Elementor, that is now more or less clear.
Since Elementor has so many possibilities, there is sometimes a battle between Elementor and a Wordpress theme, which also offers the same possibilities. That is redundant and not necessary. People prefer to use a theme like Hello Elementor, which leaves everything to the page builder but in itself offers a stable basis for the website.
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Of course there are also themes such as Astra Pro which is also fully focused on Elementor and only extends it extra. Such a theme is of course a lot better than Hello, but one must have a great knowledge of themes and page builders to know this at all.
HELLO RATINGS
Hello has a 4.5 out of 5 rating on Wordpress.org. A number of people apparently expect something special and think it is too basic, at least that is my conclusion. However, it is seen that the theme has already been installed on 1.000.000+ websites despite its short existence, which is unprecedented.
HELLO LOADING TIME
We are doing 2 tests, the first without a cache plugin, the second with the best cache plugin installed, WP-Rocket. As expected, the theme loads very quickly, it is after all a minimalist theme.
Without WP-Rocket cache plugin
With WP-Rocket cache plugin
HELLO CHILD-THEME
Creating a child theme is not that difficult, but you still need to know how. For those of you who don't know, on Github becomes a ready-made child theme for Hello Elementor offered. Ultimately, a child theme is little more than a functions.php file and a style.css stylesheet. Install both the theme itself and the child theme with the same name. Activate the child theme and you can edit these files there. If you upgrade your theme, these files will not be overwritten if you changed them.
ELEMENTOR FREE
After you have installed the theme, you will see that there is really little of a theme, which is also the intention. There are no sidebars, no footer and no header. There are no theme settings as other themes have and you cannot adjust anything via the WP customizer. Everything is left to Elementor with this theme, but don't worry because Elementor can do everything.
Elementor allows you to construct the complete pages and posts through sections and columns using its templates as shown below.
ELEMENTOR PAGE DESIGNS
You don't have to build everything yourself, of course. Elementor offers demo layouts for pages from which you can start the design. This is something that premium themes also offer, but Elementor can do the same and more as most of these themes.
ELEMENTOR PRO
Despite the fact that Elementor Free is a nice page builder, the difference with Elementor Pro is huge. Only here will you get full control over your header, footer, and hundreds of demo designs. The Pro version contains 50+ extra widgets compared to the free version, form builders and a sea of options for shops with Woocommerce. It is highly recommended to upgrade to Elementor Pro. Via the button below you can read my review for Elementor Pro.
POPULAR-FX THEME (PopularFX vs Hello)
I will discuss here the Wordpress version of the PopularFX Theme. The theme is rapidly gaining popularity, the free version has already been installed on more than 100.009+ websites.
PopularFX theme review: Rating
If we check for PopularFX's rating on Wordpress.org it is 4.5 out of 5. A very good rating, but there are many top themes with a rating above 4.9, so it is not really impressive. Don't get me wrong, this theme has special qualities and is certainly one of the better themes on Wordpress.org. Even better is the pro version, which is the case with all themes.
PopularFX theme review: Demos
The theme has gone through a number of fairly extreme improvements that we will now talk about. Like any other self-respecting WP theme these days, PopularFX has ready-to-use demo websites that can be installed with 1 click. It comes up here that I said that the theme has special qualities. You will be offered 350+ of these demos, and the designs are really eye-catching here and there.
The nice thing about demos is that you can make a quick start with them. In principle, the website is already showing the wrong photos and texts. So place your logo in it, adjust texts and photos and you are well on your way to having your own site.
PopularFX theme review: Web shops
I only count 8 demos for web shops in total. The theme is 100% compatible with Woocommerce but if you are going to build a webshop then choose a theme like Astra or another theme from my top 10 for webshop-themes.
PopularFX theme review: Speed
In the meantime, no theme wants to lag behind in terms of loading times or speed, as Google attaches more and more value to this. PopularFX is so far I don't know built to load super fast even though it is a so-called light-weight theme. In principle, these are almost always fairly fast. PopularFX does well in the speed test I performed at GtMetrix. The bare theme without additional plugins with only a well-configured cache plugin produced the result presented above. Of course you can optimize your website yourself on loading time. You follow this tutorial here.
PopularFX theme review: Page builders
The PopularFX theme uses Pagelayer, a simple drag and drop page builder, but the theme is fully compatible with the Elementor Pro page builder, one of the best in the field. I also recommend installing Elementor for free, but even better of course the pro version.
PopularFX theme review: Elements
PopularFX offers a very large number of elements for Pagelayer-Builder, which, as mentioned before, can easily be extended to the pro version which has many more elements, as shown below.
PopularFX theme review: Conclusion
I think the PopularFX theme is a very good theme. The demo layouts are great, the theme set up is quick and easy, and it has a good loading time. The theme is also very suitable for building shops. The price is just standard for good themes, so that's okay too. The theme offers great value for money, although I would rather spend my money on one of the themes in my top 10 for this year's WP themes.
PopularFX vs Hello conclusion
First of all thank you for reading this PopularFX vs Hello comparison till the end. Both themes are 100% compatible with Elementor page builder which is great. If you have the money to install Elementor Pro I would , the difference between free and pro is very big. Hello is made especially for Elementor. If you don't want to use Elementor, forget about Hello because on its own it's worth nothing. Both themes load very quickly and I can recommend them both.
Tip: There are themes that are ranked much higher in my top 10 themes for [2023] than Hello and PopularFX. The themes in this list are of course very good alternatives to PopularFX and Hello.