-
AuthorPosts
-
-
(Why is the font so tiny in typing this? Is it just me? These “older” eyes can barely see it!)
For the past 12 years we have used Genesis and a Studio Press child theme for our WP clients.
Then I started reading that Genesis is no longer supported by WPEngine. So we started using (free) Astra as that is what my lead developer likes the best and I usually listen to her.
A new client came along last month and wanted an e-com site for her small publishing biz and so we decided to set them up with WP and Woo as we have done for clients too small for Shopify.
We started building the site using (free) Astra… but it didn’t look as good nor work as well as Gen with Infinity.
So we junked Astra and built it out (https://imagesfromthepast.com) in the hope and prayer that Gen will continue to work for the next five years.
Was that a REALLY bad executive decision on my part… in your opinion?
-
Where did you read that Genesis was no longer supported? I believe it still is…
Perhaps it was a specific child theme rather than the entire framework?
That’s not to say it’s the right fit for every project, but speaking as someone who also loved and used Genesis for most every site I built, I understand how challenging it can be to use new options.
I’ve liked Kadence quite a bit as an alternative. :)
-
I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that Genesis is dead, but it’s long in the tooth, and it certainly isn’t getting the airtime that Kadence, Astra, Beaver, and others are getting. The only people who would know are Brian Gardner and Nathan Rice.
-
Just going to add that I find it funny that this question was posed, and I discovered it via this forum’s RSS feed, and the post is posted on a forum. Both of which are technologies that have been regarded as “dead” 😅. Oh, and many of us in this forum will receive a this response in their email inbox. Also been touted as dead for a while now.
I’m starting to believe tech doesn’t die, it just waits to become relevant again.
To answer your question directly though, nope. Genesis is owned and maintained by Studiopress, who just updated at least one Genesis repository on GitHub in the last 9 months. I actually just took http://www.casualweirdness.life off of a Genesis theme last year, and that site was built in 2021.
To me, Genesis is a paradigm for building a site. It may not be the best tool in most cases these days, but there’s absolutely a place for it in the modern WordPress ecosystem.
-
A couple of questions:
- When a shop is too small to be on Shopify? [Just curious, noting implied]
- Regarding the Genesis framework, I personally like it as much as its light, and as other posters said, it is the foundation of StudioPress themes, so it is far from dead, in my opinion.
- Regarding Astra, I prefer OceanWP. Noting is wrong with Astra, but I think each of us has a preferred set of tools that we rely on.
-
- Running Woo on WP on Pair.com shared hosting with a free theme and free plugins is about $96 a year.
Shopify’s cheapest plan is $468 a year.
- I’m hoping you are right and that some new upgrade of WP does not ‘brick’ our Genesis site forcing us to go to Astra or Kadence or whatever the “hot theme of the day” is.
- Yes we all have our own standards for tooling. Our clients do not like the subscription model. They are happy to pay once for the theme but expect to receive security or operational updates for life, but not new features.
If new features are offered for an upgrade price, fine. But our clients don’t want to pay a yearly subscription for features that they don’t want or need. Bottom line our client base is basically very frugal… aka struggling startups.
Our e-com sites start at $2,000 and go up from there depending on how many products we have to input. Adding an extra $50 per year renewal fee (what Astra charges) for five years (projected life of site)… $250 is more than our clients want to pay when they are not convinced there is any real value in this fee for them.
We’ve been doing sites for our particular client base (mostly small book publishers) for 14 years now and I’ve tried to pitch the subscription model, but it just does not fly in our market. I hope it does in your market.
YMMV
-
Genesis Framework has not been updated to a new version for quite a long time. The last time was more than a year ago. It seems that it is no longer the focus of developers after being acquired by WPEngine.
I am also using Genesis Framework for my blog (https://wpcanban.com) and developing a child theme called Paradise (https://wpcanban.com/mua-paradise-child-theme). It would be a big loss if the Genesis Framework was forgotten.
-
WP Engine has not stopped supporting Genesis and we expect to continue supporting this popular theme framework, and our customers using it, for many years going forward. That said, we have been careful about our investment in this area, given that WordPress is moving fast and furious in the direction of block themes and full site editing. We fully expect to address issues, to update the tech stack and deal with security bugs.
But it is unclear how much new feature innovation we should do for Genesis at this time. We are keeping our eyes, ears and minds open though. If you have ideas or would like to talk more in depth, feel free to reach out to us at WP Engine.
-
I think that as long as you keep Genesis updated so that it continues to work with new versions of WP, that is all that is needed. I don’t think anyone is looking for new features.
As long as the Gen middleware and the Studio Press themes can use the block editor I don’t see any major reason why you need to run to FSE… I tried FSE with the current WP 2020x themes and didn’t like it… and to be honest did not see a use-case for it in our shop.
I’m not sure WPE understands what a ‘good thing’ they have with Genesis and SP. If your company decides to EOL Genesis, there is a huge part of your customer-base that are going to run to another platform… (my people like Astra) and WPE will not be the first place they (we) look to for goods and services in the WP space.
I know that I were running WPE (and I’ve run companies much larger than WPE) I’d be working my tail off to develop Genesis and keep it current as possible so as not to lose such a large (and happy) customer base.
Without Gen. and SP all you are is a hosting company… a very good for sure, but there is nothing that really distinguishes you from the many, many other really good hosting companies.
I don’t know what kind of business-savvy WPE has, but I would hope there is someone on board with an MBA or the equivalent experience who understand a simple fact that applies to all businesses: It is far, far, far easier to keep an old customer than to get a new one.
Genesis can be a ‘golden goose’ for you… and you need it because you don’t have any other ‘geese’ on your farm.
Without Genesis, you are have to compete with many, many other ‘upscale’ hosting companies… and there is not much room for dynamic growth in that market, from what I can see… and I’ve been the software arena since I wrote my fist line of IBM ALC code in 1973 for H. Ross Perot’s EDS company (which puts me at an age close to dead!)
Anyway, thanks for contributing here.
-
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
