TheGem vs Essentials Theme comparison [2024] 💥
THE-GEM vs ESSENTIALS
Essentials vs TheGem, we compare these popular themes on loading speed, the number of demo website and pages, the quality of the demos, the type of page builder they use and how well they can be customized. TheGem and Essentials both sell very well and get very good ratings.
THE-GEM THEME (Essentials vs TheGem)
The Gem Wordpress Theme it is definitely worth taking a closer look at the theme and writing a review about it. The first thing you notice are the beautiful demos that the theme offers, these are separate and well styled. In total, the theme currently has a sloppy 70-in-1-click demo versions available (they call them creative concepts themselves). There are themes like Be Theme with 600+ demos but they are fairly easy to assemble, The Gem offers a much higher quality. The Be Theme has more sales and is even number 3 on the Themeforest market place. Apparently there are many people who choose the many demos while they can only install one. Anyway, let's talk about The Gem and have a look at some of their demos below.
With a good multifunctional theme, you literally have to be able to create any type of website in order to achieve maximum scores in our reviews. And after playing with TheGem, I can absolutely say it delivers what it promises. TheGem is the latest creation from CodexThemes, well-known in the theme world. I have to say this theme is really versatile. CodexThemes put together some demos for niches ranging from creative agencies to gyms, to restaurants and more. It is definitely a beautiful and functional theme.
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TheGem main functions
- More than 70 homemade design concepts for different niches
- Templates for more than 400 pages
- Focus on performance
- Useful custom message types
- Beautiful designs
- Includes Bakery Pagebuilder and Revolution Slider
- Correct code formatting for page speed
- Multi-page and one-page ready
- 2,600+ font icons
If you fancy any of the more than 70 homepage designs, you can easily import all or a certain selection through TheGem's control-board. All you need to do is go to TheGem Import in your admin panel and the wizard will walk you through everything. As for the import process, it couldn't be easier.
Install of TheGem WordPress Theme
After installing TheGem, you must first install all required and recommended plugins. Once you've done that, your admin panel will look much fuller. In addition to all the new plugins, TheGem also gives you many custom post types.
As I mentioned above in this review, you can always import one or more of the 70+ pre-designed design concepts by going to TheGem Import. But if you don't want to use any of those design concepts, you have to go to the theme's customization menu.
Customize TheGem WordPress Theme
TheGem uses its own theme customization manager, not the WordPress Customizer. I understand why themes do this, but I always find it a bit frustrating that I have to keep previewing changes instead of seeing them in real time. I wish there was an easy way to move all relevant options directly to the WordPress Customizer. The admin panel is divided into ten categories.
In general, you set up basic information such as the layout and identity of your blog. There is not much to change outside of your logo and some information about the functionality:
TheGem review headers
Under "Header" you can set every detail of your site's header. This includes layout, alignment and design:
You have a large number of header options thanks to the dropouts with multiple styles. In "Fonts" you can set which fonts your site uses and how big it is. You can go through any class to customize every aspect of your fonts. TheGem has many Google Fonts, so you have plenty of stylish options. And if you want more selection, you can always import new fonts via the included Fonts Manager:
In the "Colors" section, you can set colors for literally every single element on your site. It would take a while to go through and adjust everything, but all options are there if you want them:
TheGem review backgrounds
Just as the name says, "Backgrounds" lets you customize the backgrounds for different parts of your site. You can choose solid colors or upload images.
Under "Footer" you can turn your footer on and off and set custom text. Again, not much about this section. I feel like there may be other valuable options here - like activating / deactivating social icons or links:
TheGem review contact & social
With "Contacts & Socials" you can add address and contact information, as well as links to social icons. These social icons can be displayed in both the header and footer. I have a feeling that this section could be placed in the Header and Footer categories, but a sneak peek of that.
TheGem review back-ups
In this TheGem review it should be mentioned that "Backup" is a wonderful tool to have in it. This allows you to export a backup of all your theme settings. That way, if you ever lose any theme settings, you can easily restore them with the backup feature. Essentially, experimenting with theme settings makes a low-risk action, since you can always fall back on the backup if you need to:
TheGem Custom Post Types
TheGem includes seven custom post types by default. These are:
- News
- Portfolios
- Quickfinders
- Customers
- Galleries
- Teams
- Reviews
Custom fields for posts and pages
TheGem contains a huge amount of custom fields for creating posts or pages. When you add a new post or page, you'll see plenty of options at the bottom of the screen:
You can set everything from video footage to custom clips to custom layouts. For example, if you want to move the sidebar for one post, you can do that with custom fields. If you want to add custom widgets to one post, you can do that too. These custom fields have a lot of versatility. You have plenty of new ways to customize your individual posts and pages with TheGem.
Included is the Bakery Pagebuilder
As I mentioned in the list of features, you also get access to the Bakery Pagebuilder for creating pages. Bakery Pagebuilder is not my absolute favorite page builder, but it is definitely a solid option and includes both front-end and back-end editing. Whenever you create a new page or post, you have the option to enter your chosen Bakery Pagebuilder editor view to create drag and drop designs:
TheGem review Elementor
The Thegem Theme now comes in 2 different versions for a price. That means that you can choose between the Pagebuilder who is used, WP Bakery PageBuilder or Elementor.
TheGem loading time - Good Google PageSpeed
I did my tests on TheGem's demo-site using Google PageSpeed Insights. The score was 84 on desktop without any caching or optimized images. I guess after have fixed those issues the theme would score about 90 on PageSpeed Insights, a very good score.
ESSENTIALS THEME (Essentials vs TheGem)
ESSENTIALS THEME REVIEW
Essentials is one of the Wordpress themes that is rapidly emerging. Not surprising because the theme offers many special qualities and is 100% compatible with the most popular page builder out there, Elementor. The theme is suitable for any kind of webshop, blog or website. This theme excels in a huge number of demo websites and demo pages, just like another theme from Pixfort: Soledad. What immediately struck me is that they have copied a lot of Divi , the most popular theme there is. This includes the animations, the Shape Dividers and much more. Those are things that made Divi unique, but in Essentials you have a kind of Divi copy.
ESSENTIALS RATING
Below you can see the rating that Essentials gets from people who bought the theme, and I must immediately say that 4.96 is an absolute top score. Such high ratings are very rare and so I certainly expect this theme to rise even further in the rankings.
ESSENTIALS INSTALLATION AND DEMOS
Installing Essentials is very easy. The theme does not have a free version so you will have to buy it first and it can simply be installed via the standard Wordpress theme installer.
It is recommended to install one of the many ready-to-go designs. Essentials offers about 30 very nice complete designs for web shops in all niches out there, so furniture, tools, clothing, etcetera. The theme is still very new and there will certainly be many more website demos soon. In addition to the website demo, you can also choose from 585 individual page demos. All demos are available for both Elementor and WP-Bakery Pagebuilder, both page builders that you can use with this theme.
ESSENTIALS SPEEDTEST
We perform a speed test with the theme under quite optimal conditions, so with cache plug-in and all images optimized. This theme indicates that it is also specialized on loading times and the results are very good as can be seen in the image below, but there are much faster themes of course.
with optimized images and cache plugin
ESSENTIALS HEADER & FOOTER BUILDER
Essentials offers one of the best Header & Footbuilders that allows you to style your header just the way you want without any technical knowledge. Essentials also has a dozen standard header styles that can be installed with 1 click.
ESSENTIALS THEME REVIEW: PAGE BUILDERS
All material such as demos comes in Essentials for 2 good page builders. You can use both a tuned Elementor-Free and a tuned version of WP-Bakery page builder, however you want. If you are going to use Elementor it is definitely worth buying Pro version.
ESSENTIALS THEME REVIEW: ELEMENTS
The Essentials Theme is packed with elements, below I will discuss a few separately if you want to know more then check out their own site where you can find info all over all elements. I have to say that the quality and number of elements are impressive, this is a great theme. So much has been copied from Divi that there is no other option already has the Divi Theme even more gadgets.
ESSENTIALS SHAPE BUILDER
For example, as mentioned earlier this has been copied from Divi, the Shape-Builder is a great tool. You can create beautiful backgrounds made of shapes on pages as well as blog articles and in different sections if you want. These shapes can even move and colors can be adjusted very quickly.
ESSENTIALS POP-UPS
Divi had it and now more and more themes are coming with it, a built-in pop-up Builder. I must also say that Essentials did not just copy stuff but did its best to surpass Divi. This Pop-up Builder is great and offers a lot of standard pop-up layouts. All buttons in the menus can be linked with pop-ups and pop-ups appear, for example, when visitors lowered pages so that you can quickly tell them something with your pop-up.
WOO: ENHANCED PRODUCT PAGE
With Essentials you can also build a very professional webshop. There is no lack of the best possible features for Woocommerce as good themes specialized on Woocommerce such as Ocean-WP have. Enhanced Product Page allows you to display your products in different styles to enhance your products.
ESSENTIALS WOO: WISHLIST
Wishlists have been around in themes for a long time and are very practical. Your customers can record in their account what they want to order later in your webshop by clicking a heart next to the product.
WOO: SLIDING CART
Your shopping cart can be called up at any time and will slide in nicely from the right. I'll leave it at this because there is so much more that this theme can do, but via the button below you can view it all on Essentials own site if you want.
ESSENTIALS THEME REVIEW: CONCLUSION
There is nothing bad to say about this theme. This is one of the best themes out there to build both websites and web shops and it is rising in the rankings and with every upgrade it is better again. It works perfectly with the Elementor pagebuilder and that's great. I previously indicated that Essentials is a kind of copy of Divi, although Divi is even better, I think. Therefore, as good as Essentials is, I would rather take Divi if you want even more options.
Of course, a large team has been working on Divi for years and it is therefore a lot more stable and without errors. Also, Divi can be installed on as many sites as you want and it only costs $ 89 and comes with the Divibuilder full version! Essentials comes with Elementor, but that's the free version we're talking about then. Essentials costs $ 59 per website you have and is well worth the money, but if you have multiple websites then Divi is without doubt the better choice.
Essentials vs TheGem conclusion
First of all, thank you for reading this Essentials vs TheGem comparison to the end. Both themes are 100% compatible with Elementor page builder which is great. If you have the money to install Elementor Pro I definitely would , the difference between free and pro is very big. Both themes are multipurpose themes with a lot of settings, you have to love them. Essentials and TheGem load about the same speed and are both very versatile and easy to customize. My preference is for Essentials, but both themes are definitely worth their money, provided it is only for 1 single website.
In case you want to provide 2 or more websites with a theme, I do not recommend both of these themes because then it will be much too expensive, since a separate expensive license will be required for each website. In that case, you can much better use Astra or Divi as it will save you money for multiple sites. In addition, these latter themes are ranked higher in my top 10 themes for [2024] than TheGem and Essentials.
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