WordpressFilter: Thesis, Frugal, or Headway?

August 14, 2009 2:07 PM

I am theme shopping for Wordpress and have pretty much narrowed my choices to Thesis, Frugal and Headway.

You'll notice these are all Wordpress Framework Themes and can do so much more than any free theme. All three are around $75-$80 each and all have options that blow me away. The new Headway that was only released in late July is getting a lot of buzz for the drag 'n drop page layout and it is impressive. Thesis has a huge user support forum that wins a lot of raves. Frugal has many options, seems to be extremely user-friendly and is a very clean theme. They all have their good points and all have one or two things I don't like. SO.....is there anybody here with good/bad experiences with any of these 3 themes? I know Headway may be too new, but it's become a player fairly quickly in the "framework" space, so I'm hoping somebody has been able to use it and report back.

Please no "You're stupid for paying for a theme" type comments because there are no free themes that come anywhere even close to the options these three provide for customization without knowing a lick of code.

Thesis - Frugal - Headway? Are they all so good it's eeny, meeny, miny, moe?

posted by Gerard Sorme to computers & internet (10 comments total)

I bought Frugal, and have been very happy with it. On Aug 12, he came out with a new version, called Frugal Professional. I got a free upgrade from Premium to Professional, but haven't installed it yet.

I selected Frugal because it is such a clean design. By default, it looks like the ones in his videos. But, if you look at the gallery, you can get a sense of what's possible to make it look more like "you" without cluttering it up too much.
posted by Houstonian at 2:40 PM on August 14

I am completely and totally unable to determine what Headway looks like out of the box. But some of the answer to what theme you choose is going to be based on your comfort level with editing CSS.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:53 PM on August 14

@Houstonian - I love frugal. I'm seriously considering it. Have you found the frugal support forums to be active? One plus for Thesis are the busy and supportive forums.

@DarlingBri - I'm with you on wondering why Headway has no demo site. Lots of videos which show the very cool options (the WYSIWYG drag 'n drop layout blows me away), there are links to sites using Headway, etc. but no out-of-the box demo which, to me, makes no sense. I first learned of Headway when John Haydon made the switch.

Word travels fast! As I was writing the above, I was just sent a link to an "Unofficial Headway HQ" and a link to live demo options user: demo pass: demo

Right now, I'm leaning to frugal, but think I'll go check out all the customization options at Headway. Being so new, I wonder about user support being an issue though - just thought of that.

I'd like to hear from those with experiences with any of these three framework themes.
posted by Gerard Sorme at 4:28 PM on August 14

I'm not sure about the others, and I am woe to recommend this, but I was able to find a torrent of Thesis (an older version) which I installed and tested. I came to the conclusion that it is what I was looking for, and decided to buy a license. The support forum has proven invaluable, but overall, it is just a great theme, even right out of the box.

I'm not sure what look you are going for, but from the looks of it, Frugal's simplicity may affect your options for customization. This could be a pro or con, depending.
posted by Never Better at 4:28 PM on August 14

I really haven't been watching the support forums. I did have one question, which I posted there. Eric (the frugal developer) answered right away. His video tutorials are very helpful.

You can always try the free version (Frugal Basic), then upgrade if you want more. In fact, that's what I did.

As far as knowing how to edit the CSS: Basically, that's why he has the Frugal Theme Settings. The Basic version has fewer options in the Theme Settings; the ones you pay for have more. If you want to, you can override the CSS, but many things you can do within Theme Settings. For example, probably most or all of the websites featured in his gallery were done via the Theme Settings.

It also comes with a 32-page book which goes a long way to understanding what Frugal offers. If you'd like to see it, let me know and I'll send it to the email address in your profile (or wherever you'd like it sent).
posted by Houstonian at 4:42 PM on August 14

I bought Thesis mostly for the forums (which really are great). I am a php programmer and also adept at css so I tend to answer more than I ask. I didn't know much about wordpress at the time, though.

I've heard complaints from people who struggle with some layout/design issues in thesis but I imagine this would be true of most frameworks. If you like how it looks out of the box you won't be disappointed - and getting help (or finding it on the forums) should be easy. I'll say it again - The support really is great. I haven't looked at frugal at all, and only saw the demo for headway (which seems to take a lot from thesis).

I know you don't want to hear it, but someone else might, so I'll throw out some love for thematic too. I believe there is work underway for a "design options" wizard thingie similar to thesis bein worked on. Support for thematic is great as well.

Oh and I believe thesis version 2 is supposed to have a lot of the drag and drop layout stuff that headway has, and thesis upgrades are always free (unless that has changed?)
posted by backwards guitar at 4:43 PM on August 14

Have you looked at Atahualpa with Simple:Press?
posted by cyniczny at 6:06 PM on August 14 [1 favorite]

You don't elaborate on how skilled you are at working with CSS, etc, but if you have "above average" CSS skills, then Thesis all the way. If you are not particularly proficient with CSS, then go for the others.
posted by wackybrit at 6:19 PM on August 14

For what it's worth, I use Thesis and absolutely love it, especially after I found the OpenHook plugin.
posted by aheckler at 4:18 AM on August 15

Thesis and Headway both have a lot going for them. But, in the end (just as a follow-up), I went with Frugal Premium/Professional. Incredibly simple to use and it's not just a theme for minimal sites. No question, it is a great them for minimalist sites, but the framework allows for flashy and bold sites as well - it's extremely versatile. The pre-sale questions to the developer, Eric Hamm, were answered quickly and he didn't give simple two sentence answers; he answered my questions in depth and I really appreciated him taking the time. That told me a lot about Eric - and about the frugal theme. The support forum has proved to be a great resource with very knowledgeable frugal users - not to mention the active participation of Eric Hamm.

Thanks to everyone who responded. Great answers!
posted by Gerard Sorme at 10:48 PM on August 18