I have been trying to change the look and design of my blog(s) for a long time. I tried a number of themes but I never got the satisfaction with it. See, I am no CSS champion or something. I simply don’t know it. So I wanted some theme that allows me to customize the layout, color and similar things so that I can make my site distinguishable from other sites using same or similar theme, of course without coding in HTML, CSS or any other language.
Looking for such a website, I came across the Thesis Theme for WordPress which claims to be the “easiest” way to deploy and tweak the WordPress designs. I checked the website and was taken away with its claims. So I decided to purchase it for a whooping $199 only to realize after few hours that I made a mistake.
It’s a nightmare for a beginner
Yes! The reason for which you bought Thesis was its claim to be able to do the customization in a most simplistic without the need of coding at all. Does it happen? Answer is mostly negative.
See, though I am not a CSS expert or something but I certainly am no noob to these things. If I find it complicated despite of being in Software profession, many others will find it complicated too. You will keep on fiddling with drag and drop and will never get the thing you want. I For e.g., you will surely not like the author image below the author description. will you? I found no option to keep it beside the author description.
Where the f**k is documentation and tutorials?
If you are new to something, the first thing you turn to is its manual. Behold Thesis. Its users guide has nothing to offer in terms of how to build a website with Thesis 2.0. All it tells you is how to upload box and packages. Don’t ask for video tutorials. It exists for Thesis 1.6 and is not valid for Thesis 2.0 at all. Now before you suggest me to Google for tutorials, my question to you: did I buy Thesis or Google service? If a product doesn’t have a proper user manual, then it should stop calling it “do it yourself”.
Where are the skins, updates, packages as promised?
Thesis 2.0 was launched in October’12. Almost 5 months and there is virtually nothing as has been promised. The professional package say that it will include two complementary skins very soon. Soon has a new definition here. It is everlasting. I was checking the web for information about updates and was amazed to know that Thesis 2.0 came after more than a year of its announcements. Moreover, you might end up paying more for any updates. I feel like I bought a beta version of a software where most of the things is in to-do list.
I paid $200, why do I need to pay more for the essential goodies?
Because you are trapped. You have to pay for skins, boxes (something like widgets with some wizardry) and what not. Moreover at the tipping point when you feel like you cannot design your website with this “do it yourself” framework, you’ll see there are plethora of designers that can customize it for you. But wait a sec! Did you not just pay $200 so that you don’t have to hire a web designer?
What’s the fuzz about SEO?
One of the main high points discussed everywhere is that Thesis provides you an “awesome” option of superb SEO. See, again, I am no SEO expert but I do use free-to-use SEO plugin from Yoast and trust me, I did not find the fames SEO option any different than it. In fact many other themes provides the same easy-to-configure SEO options. For e.g., the TopGadget theme from Magazine 3 provides the same options and this theme is also very much configurable.
In my (layman) opinion, it is just one of those marketing strategy where you keep on wondering why you paid such hefty amount for a stuff where others get if for far less amount of money.
Why Thesis 2.0 sucks?
There are plenty of reasons and I can write pages after pages over it. But I would like to highlight few points to sum up this article as why Thesis framework sucks:
- It is over expensive
- It is all about marketing and big claims
- It is not at all suitable for non-technical people and beginner
- It hardly provides updates
- You have to pay for lots of things which you might have assumed to be included in the package
- Many boxes, skins, packages are in “coming soon” mode
- No proper user guide
- No video tutorials for Thesis 2.0
While Thesis may be great for many, it is surely no piece of cake for a not-so-technical person. While DIY market itself as a any-one-can-build-it, it is certainly not what it claims to be.
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