Kadence Theme Review and My Experiences

With Kadence WP, many dare to take the leap away from inflated page builders to the WordPress block editor Gutenberg. In this article, we take a close look at what makes the Kadence Theme the Kadence Blocks and Gutenberg an unbeatable team.

The Kadence Theme is a modern and fast WordPress theme. It primarily uses the standard WordPress functions and only extends them to ensure the highest possible compatibility. With additional plugins, blocks and features, you have full control over your design.

What is possible with WordPress and a good theme could only be implemented a few years ago with additional code and a sluggish page builder such as Elementor or Beaver Builder. PHP, HTML and CSS is no problem for me, but for the normal blogger it quickly reaches the limit of what is possible.

Read on if you’re interested in why Kadence WP is so interesting.

Do I use Kadence myself?

What is the Kadence Theme?

Kadence is a so-called multi-purpose WordPress theme. This means that it is not designed for a specific niche, but is visually neutral. Through adjustments or starter templates, the appearance is then designed for each website.

Kadence WP is the developer of the theme and a number of other plugins that add features to the theme. Both the Kadence Theme and the Kadence Blocks are available as a free version and an extended Pro version.

On April 6, 2021, Kadence WP joined the larger developer studio SolidWP (formerly iThemes), but continues to operate independently. Thus, it also belongs to the StellarWP Brand.

Kadence Theme CSS Breakpoints

Below you will find the Kadence Theme Breakpoints in the table. At this pixel width, the theme changes the design for the optimal display on the respective device. This technique is called responsive design.

Breakpoint Name	Width in Pixel
Mobile	below 768 px
Tablet	below 1024 px
Desktop	from 1024 px

Quality since 2013

The Kadence theme is new, but Kadence WP has been programming and distributing professional WordPress themes since 2013. So the first themes like Virtue, Ascend and Pinnacle are still kept up to date and supported.

Tutorial: 10 minutes of video to get you started

How much does Kadence or its membership cost?

	Kadence Theme Pro	Kadence Blocks Pro	Essential Bundle	Full Bundle	Membership Lifetime
Updates and Support	1 Year	1 Year	1 Year	1 Year	unlimited
Websites	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited
Kadence Theme Pro	yes	no	yes	yes	yes
Kadence Blocks Pro	no	yes	yes	yes	yes
Starter Templates Pro	no	no	yes	yes	yes
Kadence Cloud	no	no	no	yes	yes
Kadence Woo Extras	no	no	no	yes	yes
Price	$ 59,00	$ 69,00	$ 129,00	$ 199,00	$ 699,00

Whether you buy the theme individually, or as part of the membership, you can always use it on as many blogs as you like. With the theme alone, however, the additional plugins such as Kadence Blocks or the Woo Extras are not included.

On all products there is a 30-day money back guarantee.

How to install Kadence and the Blocks

You can install the theme directly from the WordPress directory. So do the Kadence Blocks.

If you have decided on the Pro version, you will find pro addons for the theme and the block plugin in the Product Downloads tab of your dashboard.

You install these two WordPress plugins via upload plugin in your WordPress admin.

Kadence Theme Features

Now let’s finally take a look at what the Kadence Theme can do!

In the Design menu > Kadence is the control center of the theme. Here you can activate the Pro version and you will find the links to all functions and settings.

Basically, you will find all features centrally in the WordPress Customizer.

Advanced Customizer

For most themes, the customizer is not further mentionable. Kadence is different. You will find menus, options, functions and possibilities that you have not seen before in any theme.

Usually you will find in a menu the tabs General and Design. In general, the settings you were looking for are, for example, the width of the sidebar. In addition, Design offers you settings for colors, frame thicknesses, fonts or background.

Also, yes, you can set all settings separately for the following devices/display sizes:

• desktop
• Tablet
• Mobile

Layouts

Kadence offers you a wealth of options to design your layout. So you can set the total width on the pixel and define the sidebar.

Alternatively, depending on the possibility, the following units are available to you:

• Px
• Em
• Rem
• Vw

For many measurements you have the possibility to choose between desktop, tablet and mobile. This will immediately show you the corresponding view and then drag the selected settings only for this device.

Never before have you had so much influence on the representations of your website. At least without touching code.

You can configure the layouts separately for posts, pages, categories, archives and specially created custom post types.

Global color palettes

The Kadence color palettes were for me the decisive point for the change from Astra to Kadence as a new standard theme for my projects.

1. The actively selected Global Palette determines the appearance of your website. This colors, backgrounds, buttons and all other elements are colored.
2. For the active color palette you can have loaded two more palettes. For example, you can quickly switch to a special Christmas theme.
3. The folder button opens the modal with further predefined sets.
4. “Select A Color Set” offers more color sets.
5. “Import/Export” provides an easy way to share your color sets across multiple websites. Very convenient!

Then you can see how the appearance has been completely changed with one click.

There are 9 colors. You can change the palette in customizer, but that only changes the 9 colors that are used. The order is important and in general you should stick to the same pattern you see when you download the theme for the first time.

There are three color ranges, the first two are accent colors, the next four are contrasting colors that make for a subtle design hierarchy, usually in the text, and the last three are for backgrounds.

Header and Footer Builder

In the meantime, many other themes have followed suit. Previously, Kadence was able to settle properly with the header and footer builder.

With the header and footer builder you have full control over these two areas of your website.

We can also look forward to WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE). Then a lot will change again.

Page and post settings

I would never want to miss this feature again!

Directly in the editor you have in the right menu under “Post Settings” the possibility to adjust the layout only for this one post or page, as you are used to do otherwise only for the whole theme.

You can customize the following settings in detail:

• Transparent Header
• Post title
• Post Layout
• Content Style
• Content Vertical Padding
• Show Featured Image
• Featured Image Position
• Disable header
• Disable Footer

The “DEFAULT” setting retains the global selection in the Customizer.

Control colors and blocks

In the “Kadence Blocks Controls” tab, you will find the previously selected colors for the website. This is your color palette.

Under “Block Defaults” you assign default values for the individual blocks of the Kadence Blocks plugin.

Super handy are the page scripts.

If you need a certain JavaScript or CSS code only on this page, you can insert it here and the rest of the website will not be burdened by it.

Sticky Header

Not only the Sticky header,but also the Transparent header are worth a mention.

This leaves you with many new design possibilities.

Especially with the transparent header, great effects are created when images or the slider under the header are visible.

The image shows the five possibilities for the fixed header.

Other settings for the mobile header are hidden by the dropdown.

Support for Page Builder

The WP theme has its focus on Gutenberg. I am also pleased about this, because I believe that this is the future.

But the other two big builders are also fully supported.

Elementor

Elementor is a real size in the WordPress universe.

That’s why, among other things, the colors are synchronized and there is even an additional plugin called Kadence Woocommerce Elementor Pro with special templates.

Beaver Builder

The Beaver Builder functionality is fully integrated.

Support for WordPress LMS

Actively supported and integrated are the WordPress Learn Management Systems LearnDash, LifterLMS, and Tutor LMS.

Restrict Content Pro is available for the restriction of the rights and For the payment WooCommerce.

Also, Kadence offers a great user experience with the bbPress forum.

Kadence Pro Addons

Even if the free theme can already do a lot, with the Kadence Pro addons you can take your blog to a whole new level.

Header Addons

Adds another 19 items to the Header Builder.

Conditional Header

Create different headers for specific pages. As many unique page headers as you want. Use the powerful Header Builder for that.

Ultimate Menu

Adds menu options for mega menus, highlight tags, icons, and more.

You surely know these great menus where pictures and texts are available. You can easily implement something like that with Kadence Pro.

Header/Footer Scripts

A super practical addition. Inserts options into the customizer to add header and footer scripts.

You know, scripts like Google Analytics or Font Awesome.

Hooked Elements

The Hooked Elements is kadence’s secret weapon!

One of the features that Kadence Theme Pro adds to the Kadence theme is called Hooked Elements (or Element Hooks). Use the WordPress Gutenberg editor (or custom code) to create an item and pin it or hook it to one place on your website so that it appears exactly where and when you want it. Yes, time control is also possible.

In short, element hooks allow you to add content in different areas of a page, with unlimited customization options.

A possible use case would be to add a notice bar above the site’s header for announcements that automatically expire after a set date for seasonal banners.

WooCommerce Addons

The WooCommerce addons bring new options to the customizer for WooCommerce stores.

Infinite Scroll

The category and archive pages scroll down infinitely, instead of a split on several pages.

Color Palette Switch (Dark Mode)

This new feature adds a color palette switch, that allows you to create a “dark” mode for your website.

Local Gravatars

Loads Gravatars from your server to improve the performance of your website.

Archive Custom Page Title Backgrounds

Allows you to assign a custom image for a taxonomy background.

Kadence Blocks Features

The Kadence Blocks are an additional plugin that extends the block editor by many more blocks. These blocks come with a much more detailed degree of customization. In contrast to the standard blocks, you can also design specifically for the smartphone.

If you do not want to use a block at all, you can deactivate it in the settings.

A separate plugin for forms? You don’t need it anymore. With the Kadence form block you create contact forms and newsletter signups.

I would also like to mention the Block Row Layout. This allows you to move columns freely or assign a fixed background, with overlay, paddings and much more.

Kadence Design Library

The Design Library will significantly speed up the work on your website. Especially if you often create new blogs, the block collection is really helpful.

Directly from the Gutenberg editor, you access the sections and starter packs to insert them into your post with just one click.

Kadence Starter Templates

The Starter Templates are a free plugin from the WP directory.

Create professionally designed website designs in minutes with Kadence Starter Templates. This plugin gives you full access to ready-made website designs with the WordPress Block Builder or Elementor.

Unlike other website templates, where it is difficult to change fonts and colors, our templates are based on a globally linked color palette and a font selector. This allows you to change the color scheme or font on your entire website with a few mouse clicks. You can even preview them live before importing.

Ready-made templates can be found for the following use cases:

• Blog
• Business
• E-commerce
• Learning
• Membership

Look at the demos.

Kadence Cloud

The Kadence Cloud stores blocks and entire layouts that users can access from the editor and insert into their page.

Kadence’s public design library itself is accessible to every Kadence Block user.

With Kadence membership, you can even create your own block cloud and share your blocks and even sell them using licenses. Large libraries can be created with the following cataloguing:

• Collections
• Categories
• Keywords

This creates a whole Kadence ecosystem that helps you build websites faster and create more beautiful designs.

Learn how to create Pro Templates and block access.

Other Kadence WP Products

Kadence WP has been selling high-quality plugins as a supplement to the themes for many years. I have listed the most important of them here.

• Woo Extras (Pros)
• Woocommerce Elementor (Pro)
• WooCommerce SiteOrigin Builder (Pro)
• AMP (Pro)
• Custom Fonts (Pro)
• reCAPTCHA (Pro)
• Galleries (Pro)
• Simple Share (Pro)
• Reading Time (Pro)
• Child Theme Builder (Pro)
• Slider (Pro)
• WooCommerce Email Designer
• Related Content (Pro)
• Fullpane Vertical Slider (Pro)
• Pricing Tables (Pro)

All plugins marked with (Pro) are subject to a fee and sometimes only available with membership.

Support and Forum

“At Kadence, they are helped.” All Kadence products are very cleanly programmed, so support is rarely necessary. But if you do have a question, there are many paths open to you.

First of all, you have a free knowledge base for all products. If you do not find what you are looking for here, you can search in the support forum or ask your questions. You will also meet me there regularly.

Classic support tickets can be opened both as a customer and as a user of the free products.

My experiences with Kadence

I have now used and tested the Kadence Theme extensively in recent months. To be precise, I make all the new blogs, company websites and WooCommerce stores with this well-thought-out WordPress theme. I’m slowly migrating older sites from Elegant Themes to Kadence WP.

For me, the speed of a theme is always important. I don’t like anything bloated and slow as the basis for my creations.

Gutenberg is slim and the future! That is why I have paid attention to this as a second point. My default theme must take full advantage of the block editor and extend it even more. No other theme ecosystem does this as well as Kadence WP.

Check out our Kadence Discount. With a little luck, one is active.

Why you should use Kadence Themes!

Because the Kadence theme is technically up to date and brings everything you want from a WordPress theme for the coming years.

Forget sedate page builders and dive into the world of blocks. Your visitors will be happy with your clean and fast website!

By the way, I just wrote an article on the Kadence Shop Kit if you run a store.