Kadence Theme Review 2023: Free and Pro Version – Exactly what you need for a blazing-fast Website

Introduction Kadence Theme Review

Are you ready to take your WordPress site to the next level? Get ready for a paradigm shift in how you create and manage websites. Kadence Theme is here with not one but two versions! The free and Pro version of this versatile theme gives users access to unlimited features to create stunning, engaging sites without any coding experience. I’ll break down both options as I review what makes Kadence so special and why it stands out among other themes available on the market.

Let’s get started on our exploration of everything that Kadence has to offer aspiring content creators everywhere! Kadence stands out among the market’s top free WordPress themes. Its feature-rich design allows for extensive customization, making it an ideal candidate for your next project.

The first thing you need to know is that this theme has an extensive list of features. You get many customizable theme options with over 600 Google fonts, unlimited color combinations, many layout options, including full-width pages like blog posts and landing pages, and standard layout templates like portfolio sites or product listing websites.

Kadence Theme has over 30 starter templates full of valuable content to get you started quickly. HTML5 and CSS3 coding make it easy to customize to suit your needs.

A big plus is that it integrates with your favorite plugin and page builder.

• Gutenberg Block
• Elementor
• Beaver Builder
• Woocommerce
• LearnDash
• LifterLMS
• Tutor LMS
• Restrict ContentPro
• bbPress

What Is Kadence WordPress – custom solution ease of use

Kadence Theme is a professional, modern, responsive theme suitable for any website. Kadence is ideal for small business websites as well as large corporate sites. Kadence has been coded in HTML5 and CSS3 and uses the latest WordPress features like meta boxes; it offers much more functionality than many other themes like Astra, Generatepress, Blocksy, and Kalium.

Kadence has been built using the Kadence framework, which allows you to add custom sidebars and widgets with Kadence components easily; these components can be used by the Kadence elements, which integrate into WordPress core.

Easy Installation, no child theme needed

Extra value with friendly Kadence Starter Templates

Kadence is a beginner-friendly WordPress theme with 30+ starter templates across several niches. Choosing between the free and Pro themes, you can select the Gutenberg Editor or Elementor builder to work on and quickly set up a custom site without coding anything. You will find various themes for niches like photography, newsletter, podcasts, and so on.

What sets Kadence apart is how it retains your global colors when importing starter templates and applies them to the product’s design templates. Another highlight is how simply you can update text or color.

To sum up, if you’re on the lookout for a top-notch WordPress theme that offers starter templates with demo characters, you can’t go wrong with Kadence.

Kadence theme for Blogger websites

Kadence is a stunning and contemporary WordPress theme that allows personalizing your blog layout as easily as any other webpage. Furthermore, Kadence streamlines processes by offering simple and swift updating capabilities.

Begin by installing and activating the complimentary Kadence Blocks plugin. Once installed, adding sections like featured posts or a targeted call-to-action to your homepage is a breeze. You can further customize your blog’s appearance by creating layouts that differ from your website. Moreover, you can easily incorporate a table of contents block for longer posts, which enhances readability. With Kadence Blocks, enhancing your site’s functionality and aesthetic has never been simpler.

Kadence Theme is a good fit for your blogging website. It offers many customization options and elements (hooks). Elements is a Pro feature where you can showcase your affiliate products.

Responsive website design

Responsive design is a web design technique that allows a website to adapt to the user’s environment. It means that if you are viewing a website on a mobile phone, the website will adjust to fit the phone’s screen size.

The responsive design prevents users from zooming in on content to see it and keeps content aligned perfectly for different screens. Responsive web design uses breakpoints, which are specific points at which a style change should occur based on the device’s capabilities.

As we all know, the internet has changed dramatically in recent years. With the release of smartphones, tablets, and other devices that use different screen sizes, the way we view websites also needs to change.

Fixed positioning is no longer an option – it’s become necessary to use responsive design so that we can view websites properly on any device. All elements on a page must be positioned relative to the device’s screen size to adjust its size and position.

The Kadence Theme satisfies all your website needs. Whether viewed on a small screen or a large monitor, you can tailor the style and customize it specifically for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

What Does The Free Version of the Kadence Theme Offer You?

The free version of the Kadence theme offers a simple, clean design that is perfect for creating a professional website. The theme includes a powerful options panel that allows you to customize your site to your heart’s content. You also get access to all the Google Fonts, color palettes, and a responsive design that looks great on all devices.

Kadence offers more choices for design and customization than many free themes. There are many desirable features even in the free version.

Kadence includes many starter templates to choose from so you can start your website immediately. The 30+ Starter templates cover almost all niches. You will find templates for Blogs, Businesses, eCommerce, Learning, and Membership.

Typography

The Kadence Theme provides extensive typography settings that allow you to easily modify your website’s fonts, headings, buttons, links, and more. With the WordPress customizer, you can change the site-wide fonts, colors, and other typography settings. Kadence also allows you to change the fonts on specific pages and posts.

You can use the typography system to create a unique design for your website. If you want complete control over the typography on your website, then Kadence is an excellent theme for you.

Global Colors / Color Palette

Additional Design features and extensive Customization Options

Kadence offers various customization options and design settings so content creators can create the site they want for their business. With Kadence, you have theming colors, typography, and layout changes at your fingertips. The free version allows you to change the look of your website with one click.

Advanced Header Builder / Menu design

With the Kadence layout settings panel, you can easily customize your site header without any coding skills. The header builder is a standout feature differentiates it from other free themes. You can choose between transparent or sticky headers to enhance your site’s appearance.

What are the Premium features only available in Kadence Theme Pro?

Header Pro Addons

Conditional Headers Building

Conditional Headers are an incredibly useful feature many content creators have wished for. Instead of having one consistent header across their entire website, they now can have multiple headers customized for each page and content piece. This allows content to be truly tailored to reflect the page or content. It provides a great visual experience, allowing readers or viewers to easily distinguish content without navigating far away from the main page. Rather than having other WordPress themes that struggle with flexible header designs, Conditional Headers provide content creators with an easier way to manage and control their website’s look and feel with much more precision.

Kadence Elements / Hooked Elements

Insert blocks and page builder content anywhere, conditionally, and within a timeframe. Hooked elements are set to display on specific dates and times. For example, show a text block with your contact information only during business hours (9 am-5 pm).

Kadence Elements is especially useful for affiliate blog websites to place your affiliate links where you want. I find it is best to place them within your text than in the sidebar. I’m getting more clicks when the CTAs are part of the article. The placement capabilities of Kadence Elements are huge. You can choose to place it before the entry content or after the first, second, third, or fourth paragraph. A member from the Kadence FB community wrote a Javascript which enables placement later in the text, for example, after the tenth paragraph.

It is also possible – I do it sometimes when I find the design fits better- to use Elementor template and integrate it with the Elementor Library block in Kadence Elements.

Instead of using hooked Elements, Kadence released a separate plugin (part of the Full Bundle) Kadence Conversions, with more options to raise conversion rates. Read my separate article here.

Ultimate Menu (Mega Menu)

This feature is awesome for website admins who want an easy visitor experience. Curated content is made more accessible when mega sub-menus, highlight tags, and icons are used to draw attention. It allows viewers to identify the content they’re interested in quickly. Having menu links consciously highlighted through this feature makes each visit more likely to be seamless and successful for the viewer.

As an illustration, the image below exhibits a beautifully crafted contact page that appears when the Contacts link is clicked in the menu.

Fixed Elements

Enjoy design freedom with Kadence. This popular design tool is well-known for its extendable hooks, allowing for page-fixed content that fits any design you have in mind. Whether you’re a professional user or an amateur hobbyist, take advantage of pro features like fixed footers and banners and show-by-device design elements. Take your design to the next level with Kadence and make something truly special!

Header/Footer Scripts

Kadence comes with inbuilt scripts that allow you to place your Javascript files and style sheets in the Kadence header and footer.
Regardless of the theme you install, Kadence scripts will be available to run without hiccups.

Woocommerce Addon (Kadence Full Bundle only)

Kadence is a great theme for Woocommerce shops. It’s easy to use and customize and comes with many features specific to Woocommerce. One of the best things about using the Kadence theme is that it has an addon called Shop Kit. This plugin ensures that Kadence can change and add features specific to Woocommerce products. It’s a fantastic add-on for Woocommerce, which I highly recommend for any Woocommerce shop built with Kadence WP.

Kadence performance and loading speed

Kadence Theme comes with some awesome features, but what about its speed?
The theme is lightweight and quite fast. Kadence does not slow down and provides a remarkable UX. Speed is important nowadays, mainly if you use Kadence for an eCommerce or business site.

You can verify this using Gtmetrix or google page speed tester. Kadence performs well and scores points on both Kadence’s speed and optimization. Kadence theme almost earns 100 or A+ for page load times.

SEO friendliness

With the Kadence theme, the chance to rank well on search engines is intact. The theme enables you to optimize your posts for SEO. The Kadence search engine optimized design provides that Kadence will get top rank in SERPs, though I suppose it depends on how good you are at optimizing Kadence content (images and texts).
Additionally, Kadence supports schema markup, which is helpful for advanced SEO users and completes the SEO loop.

Kadence Theme Pros

• good integration with page builders like Elementor
• well-organized customizer
• load Google fonts locally
• Starter Templates growing library
• Global colors and typography
• Only turn-on features needed

Kadence is also available on WordPress.org and can be downloaded free from your WordPress backend under plugins. The Kadence theme is listed under the most popular themes. It stands out with five stars out of 5 from over 200,000 plus downloads (March 2023).

Kadence Theme Cons

• sometimes not easy to find the option to tweak settings in the customizer
• Some users say overwhelming, too many options
• steep learning curve compared to other WordPress themes
• no white-label options

Support

For support, the Kadence website has thorough documentation that you can use to solve your issues. You can also use the official WordPress forums to ask questions to the theme makers. Kadence also has a dedicated support forum.

After purchasing the Full Bundle, I raise support tickets through the website if I encounter any issues. You can usually expect an email response within 24 hours on weekdays (excluding weekends).. The answers provided are of top-notch quality. Even if the question was not articulated clearly, a solution was provided with great clarity. The team has been very helpful and prompt in resolving any queries.

Overall, I am satisfied with the customer support provided by Kadence. It’s dependable and efficient.

Kadence vs. Astra

Kadence Theme and Astra Theme are great options for WordPress users, but which is the best?

Astra’s page-building tools make it easy to create beautiful websites with just a few clicks. Astra has more starter templates than Kadence. This can be a great advantage if you want to get started quickly without spending time configuring everything yourself.

Here is a short comparison of the two themes:

• Price: Kadence Theme is more affordable than Astra Theme.
• Design: Kadence Theme has a more modern look than Astra Theme.
• Ease of use: Kadence Theme is easier to use than Astra Theme.
• Functionality: Kadence Theme has more features than Astra Theme.

So, which theme is the best? Kadence Theme or Astra Theme? The answer depends on your needs and preferences. If you’re looking for an affordable, modern-looking, and easy-to-use WordPress theme, Kadence Theme is the best option. Astra Theme is the better choice if you’re looking for a theme with more features. Regardless of your chosen theme, Kadence Theme and Astra Theme are great options for WordPress users. So, don’t hesitate to try either one! You can’t go wrong with either Kadence Theme or Astra Theme.

What are some other alternative themes to Kadence?

You can use a few other WordPress themes in place of Kadence. Some popular alternatives include:

• Blocksy Theme
• Elementor Page Builder
• Divi Theme Builder
• Generate Press
• Beaver Builder Theme

Elementor Cloud combines hosting with the popular Elementor Pro, all in one package. It’s a great way to get the same benefits of Elementor Pro while eliminating hosting fees.

Kadence Pro Pricing

Kadence offers users multiple purchase options for the theme.

• Free Version, download from WordPress
• Buy Kadence Pro

Alternatively, you can buy the Essential Bundle, which includes

• Kadence Theme Pro
• Kadence Blocks Pro
• Pro Starter Templates

and the third option is to purchase the Full Bundle

• Kadence Blocks Pro
• Kadence Theme Pro
• Pro Starter Templates
• Kadence Cloud
• Kadence Conversion
• Child Theme Builder
• Kadence Shop Kit
• Kadence AMP
• will also include all future plugins when available.

I recommend buying the Kadence Full Bundle. It is a perfect bundle for you if you have several websites and a ‘must-have if you have an eCommerce website. The Kadence Shop Kit plugin enriches Woocommerces, and Kadence Conversions (see my separate article) help you boost your conversion rate.

You can go with the Essential Bundle if you have only one website. Kadence Blocks plugin provides you with more Gutenberg Blocks for the designing process.

Kadence Blocks Pro

Kadence Blocks review is the perfect complement to the Kadence theme. As for the Theme, there is a Free and Pro version available. Kadence Blocks Pro gives you even more control over the look and feel of your site while still being easy to use. If you’re looking for a way to take your Kadence site to the next level, Kadence Blocks Pro is the way to go. Read my separate article for Kadence Blocks review.

FAQ

Conclusion

Kadence is a powerful and responsive WordPress theme that can help you create a site for any business type. With features like SEO, multi-language support, WooCommerce integration, and drag & drop builder customization options, it’s hard to find another with as many capabilities as possible at this price point. If you want your site to stand out from the crowd or need something simple yet effective, Kadence could be the perfect option for your needs! To ensure we are on the same page about what’s possible when using this theme, let us know in the comments below to answer any questions before they arise!