This post is based on my real experience.
A long time ago, I used to build websites for clients entirely by hand-coding. To speed things up and maintain consistency, I even created my own web framework and used it across most of my projects. Everything worked well – except for one thing: it took a lot of time to complete each site.
At that point, I was already aware of WordPress, but I avoided it. To me, WordPress seemed like a tool only suited for basic blogs, not for the kind of custom websites I was building.
Things changed when I have a client who specifically requested that their website will be built with WordPress. The reason? Their marketing team was already familiar with the WordPress dashboard and want to manage the site themselves.
“Sure, no problem,” I said – even though I had never used WordPress before. But I wasn’t worried. In programming, once you understand the core principles, learning a new platform is just a matter of time and practice. So I took the challenge.
Discover the fastest WordPress theme
Besides meeting the client’s requirement of using WordPress as a CMS, one of my top priorities has always been building websites that are fast, lightweight, and stable.
Initially, I planned to code the theme from scratch. But unexpectedly, I stumbled upon what would become the fastest WordPress theme I’ve ever used: GeneratePress.
“A fresh install adds less than 10KB (gzipped) to your page size.” That caught my attention immediately – and I was hooked.
It didn’t take long to get up to speed with GeneratePress. It’s easy to use, lightweight, and comes with a modern, minimal design. Unlike many other bloated themes, GeneratePress keeps things clean and efficient, offering only what you need – and nothing you don’t.
The table below highlights how GeneratePress compares in performance with other popular WordPress themes:
| Theme | Default Page Size (KB) | HTTP Requests | Load Time (sec) | Core Web Vitals Friendly | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeneratePress | ~30 KB | ~10 | ~0.5 sec | ✅ Yes | Extremely clean, no bloat, modular structure |
| Astra | ~50 KB | ~18 | ~0.8 sec | ✅ Yes | Lightweight, but includes more built-in features |
| Neve | ~32 KB | ~12 | ~0.7 sec | ✅ Yes | AMP-ready, starter sites included |
| OceanWP | ~60 KB | ~20+ | ~1.0 sec | ⚠️ Varies by setup | Feature-rich, may include more scripts |
| Kadence | ~45 KB | ~15 | ~0.9 sec | ✅ Yes | Modern UI, flexible but a bit heavier |
Why GeneratePress is so fast
In GeneratePress, everything comes down to its minimalist, modular architecture, efficient use of native WordPress functions. The theme focuses on clean, lightweight HTML/CSS output.
GeneratePress avoids using JavaScript libraries, unnecessary animations, and third-party frameworks – they don’t even include jQuery in sourcecode by default. Instead, the theme uses system fonts to eliminate font loading delays, helping reduce loading time right from the start.
At the core of it all is Tom Usborne, the creator of GeneratePress, who is famously performance. Every line of code in GeneratePress is written with a speed-first mindset.
GeneratePress also works seamlessly with top optimization plugins like WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, and Perfmatters, making it even faster when properly configured.
Here’s a real-world example: this is the performance result of my own website: minhthe.net – I created the site by using GeneratePress and Perfmatters for site optimization. The result? Looks great!
The result achieved 100 score for all: Performance/Accessibility/Best Practices and SEO ✅ eventhough, my website is running a shared hosting.
How is your experience with GeneratePress? I still use GeneratePress to this day, including this website. Please share your thoughts with me 😎
