5 WordPress Themes to Totally Avoid

1. X Theme WordPress Theme

X is billed as the ‘last WordPress theme you’ll ever have to buy’. This bold claim refers to the fact that it includes multiple designs within the one package. The developers of this theme have called these unique designs ‘Stacks’ and the package currently includes four different stacks.

Unlike some other themes that include skins and the ability to change the appearance using custom settings, these stacks are unique designs but that creates some problems since The X theme also includes a set of options for customising the stacks which ensures that no two installations of this theme will look the same.

While X theme comes with unique designs for just about any niche, it is not the best. The ‘Cornerstone’ builder plugin that comes bundled into the theme is one of the buggiest page builders plugins. To begin with, the plugin breals down frequently. If you’re using it to make changes to the site and step away for a bit, when you come back and try to save the changes, you’ll get no response. Zilch-Nada. You have to refresh the page, lose all the changes, and start all over again. That is extremely frustrating. The developers are yet to figure out a way to get rid of the frequent timeouts. At least they should make it such that’ Cornerstone’ notifies users when it is about to timeout. If you ran into a problem with Cornerstone, you pretty much have to fumble your way to a solution.

Because the X theme is dependent on the ‘Cornerstone’ page builder, they have two separate installations to perform and are also updated separately. This means that the X theme, and Cornerstone page builder can become out-of-sync and this can lead to unpredictable conflicts on your site. Even more, since the theme licensing is managed through Themeforest/Envato you must manually renew your license once per year or else your site’s theme will become outdated and insecure. This trips up many site owners because most paid software allows for automatic renewal so you don’t have to worry about your license expiring.

The biggest issue with the X Pro theme is that they decided to build an overly complicated interface to build custom headers and footers. I think this was a big mistake. I much more prefer the way Elementor & Beaver Builder did it, you use that same page builder interface that your users are already familiar with, versus forcing another learning curve down their throat.

2. Education WordPress by EduGate

If you don’t know your way around WordPress code, stay away from Education WordPress | Edugate. Trying to change something as simple as the header requires you to mess around with the files in your WordPress installation. Most of the time, you’ll end up crashing the site. Another thing you won’t like about Edugate is the lack of customization options. You’ll have to hire a professional to help you change elements on your site.

The theme is not ADA (American with Disabilities Act) compliant which is a major issue for any public or private education website.

It is not easy to use, it needs a lot of support and something very difficult to customize, especially the translation. Something not customizable at all if you are not a program.

Reports of their user support complain about the length of time it takes to get help.

3. Live WordPress Theme

A theme that hasn’t been updated for the last two years is a sign of trouble. LIVE from designova masquerades as a premium theme. The lack of a modern UI, support for page builders, and non-existent documentation will have you pulling your hair out the moment you install LIVE.

The fact that it hasn’t been updated raises serious security concerns.

Live is designed for bloggers. One of the problems is that it is designed for rather short messages. Reveal animation requires max height of the elements.

4. Camille-Personal & Magazine WordPress Theme

This theme is clean and modern looking which we love and if you want to use the simplest version of the demos than it is a great and affordable theme. Plus it is generally a pretty fast theme unless you do not optimize your images.

However, you should have an in-depth understanding of WordPress in order to truly customize this and get the most out of this theme as the customer support is reported to be horrendous.

For a magazine-style theme, Camille does a good impression. Too bad the developers can’t imitate the workings of a good support department. Users who run into problems with their installation often have to jump through hoops to get much-needed support. Even though Camille got an update in 2019, it doesn’t seem like it has much of a future though. Only about 700 sites use the theme, and that number is not terribly encouraging in terms of future long-term support.

5. Medical-Link WordPress Theme

While it comes with all the bells and whistles of a viable premium WordPress theme, Medical-Link is plagued with problems. From users not being able to find their way around the dashboard to entire sites going offline by themselves, Medical-Link fails to live up to expectations.

Just like the Live Theme mentioned above it also only has about 700 sales and hasn’t been updated in two years. Sorry, but Health Professionals have to have secure websites.

If you install this theme for your organization, be prepared to have disappointed clients. The contact form and search bar goes on the fritz every so often. You’ll have to know quite your way around CSS tags to get the appoint form working, and some plugins just won’t work with the theme.

This story was just are opinion and we advise you read the other online reviews of these themes as others have different opinions than ours and many people actually love these themes. From a web developer standpoint we of course have a different opinion.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is WordPress?

WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that you can use to power your website on your own hosting plan. WordPress is the most popular Content Management System on the planet. WordPress makes creating a blog, landing page, online store, forum or other website possible.

2. How do I change the style of my WordPress website?

The easiest way to change the look of your WordPress website is with a new theme. A WordPress theme is simply a template, like a style skin for your website. Your theme will give your website a unique look, and depending on what’s included in the theme it may also add features for customizations like colors, fonts, menus, widgets, pages, post types, post formats and much more.

3. How do I add new features to WordPress?

You can add a variety of features and functionality to you WordPress site with ‘plugins’. A WordPress plugin is essentially an add-on for your website. Plugins typically add new features or functionality to your WordPress website with little effort on your part. Just install and configure the plugin settings. There are free and premium paid versions for plug-ins.

4. Is WordPress SEO friendly?

WordPress is somewhat SEO friendly but it will not do all the work for you. WordPress is setup to make it easy for you to manage and improve your SEO through the use of plug-ins like Yoast, Rankmath or All in One SEO. Your website speed, also a ranking factor depends on multiple factors but the most common reasons for slower speed are your theme, image sizes, and your hosting company.

5. How does WordPress compare to GroovePages?

WоrdPrеѕѕ uѕеrѕ lоvе thе endless сараbіlіtіеѕ fоr сuѕtоmіzаtіоn іt gіvеѕ, as well аѕ thе add-ons, and the community ѕuрроrt. Groovepages is a technology platform that will be a complete suite of tools when it all finally comes together. At the time of this writing it is still in Beta but will be adding more features on an ongoing basis for the next few months.