Meet Blocksy, A WordPress Theme To Get Your Site Off The Ground Quick

The launch of the Gutenberg editor was a milestone for the WordPress community. If you are not into WordPress, you might wonder what that meant: The editing experience changed completely, from an old-fashioned one-input-field editor to a block-based editing experience. Want to dig deeper into the topic? Read my post on the Gutenberg editor.

Blocksy is a theme that is, according to its creators, made by using the latest web technologies and with the Gutenberg editor in mind.

I took it for a quick test, and in this post, I share my first impressions.

Blocksy is a great theme for running a small business website or blog (or both) that does not require any additional plugins. All layout and design options can be customized via the WordPress customizer dashboard, which makes it super easy for WordPress newbs to get a site off the ground quickly.

Blocksy Demo page, showing a blog with magazine layout

The benefit of using the Blocksy theme is not that you get a super-trendy design for your site, but rather, its benefits are to be found in being simplistic, fast-loading, and easy to configure.

Blocksy is not adding additional Gutenberg blocks to your WordPress website. Its name could trick you into believing so. Supporting the Gutenberg editor experience is a top priority for the makers of the theme. All posts and pages edited in WordPress should look exactly what the published page/post looks. No more suprises after clicking publish.

For pages, posts, archiving author pages, you can choose from different layout options.

Options for the pages layout in Blocksy theme

You can browse the Blocksy theme demo page to check out all layout options and a page that shows how Gutenberg block elements look in the theme.

Blocksy also supports WooCommerce. I did not test this feature of the theme, but you can look at the shop demo page.

The theme is fast: I installed it on a WordPress site running on a cheap shared hosting plan, and the Google PageSpeed test showed great results.

After installing Blocksy, it asks you to install “Blocksy companion”, which is a plugin that brings you the option to install starter sites (amongst other things). I found that a bit misleading, as these starter sites are, themselves, dependent on other plugins (Elementor page builder or the Getwid Gutenberg blocks plugin).

The starter sites suggest a potential use-case for the theme: Run your blog/pages using the theme default layout options and create your “special” landing pages using a page builder. Blocksy supports the most popular page builders, according to its website.

At the time of writing, installing Blocksy companion brings the option to install 4 different starter sites.

As a closing comment, I want to add that the Blocksy theme reminds me a bit of GeneratePress because of some of its layout options, but also Blocksy’s messaging around fast-loading, and being lightweight.

A first verdict after checking it out quickly: I like the layout as well as design options, and how easy it is to get a good-looking site off the ground. I am curious how the theme will evolve and if it emerges as one of the themes best utilizing the Gutenberg editor. And by the way: Blocksy theme is for free!

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