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Drawing Comparisons Between Three Popular WordPress Theme Frameworks

In its bare bones, a WordPress theme framework is the a fundamental outline around which a WordPress theme is built. When the developers have a framework to work upon, the scope to create an ideal website only gets better and more feasible.
There is a wide range of tremendously structured WordPress theme frameworks that the experts recommend. We draw comparisons between these three:

Genesis

This name resonates with anyone who has anything to do with theme development. Genesis has already made some deep inroads into the web development landscape and going by the rate at which it keeps reinventing itself, it is likely completely capture the market. We will elaborate on its features later, let’s just give an introduction to the other two frameworks we are going to talk about in the post.

Headway

A power-packed framework, Headway has made some serious headways in the market lately. It is one of those frameworks that offers you a massive suite of possibilities and also ensures that the user interface is efficient and user friendly to the core.

Pagelines

Pagelines is yet another framework that artfully combines amazing performance with user friendliness. It is one of the most customizable frameworks that gives the rein of your website’s design and structure right in your hands. A highly versatile framework, Pagelines is also fast climbing the popularity charts and giving the top sellers a serious run for their money.
How the Three Frameworks Compare against Each Other

We will compare Genesis, Headway and Pagelines on various parameters, which should give us a fair idea about which frameworks suits our needs the best:

Page Size

The page size in Genesis is 1.1 mb, which is lesser than most of the frameworks out there. The higher value is often a disadvantage, and in the case of Genesis, the low page size speaks volumes about how simple it keeps things despite being a powerful and feature-rich framework that it is.

The page size in Headway is 1.1 mb. Again, it marches ahead of most frameworks in this aspect and the same set of benefits can be attributed to Headway as well. Despite being filled with features, it keeps the page size to minimum

When it comes to Pageline, the page size certainly takes a leap. At 5.2 mb per page size, Pageline is surely the bulkiest framework. The figures certainly happen to be unusual especially when you compare them with those of other frameworks.

Page Load Time

The average loading time that a website built on Genesis takes is 970 ms (considering that your website hosting service and other speed-impacting factors are in place.) surely, this is not a bad figure. Not at all. Genesis does ensure that users don’t really have to wait for long for the web page to load fully.

Headway marches ahead of of Genesis with an even greater speed. With a loading time of just about 230 ms, it is by far the quickest framework you can get your hands on. And with a flurry of features that it contains, this amazingly low loading time seems even more incredible.

Pageline, as you would expect, has a painfully slow loading time of 5.18 secs. It is hardly surprising since with the page size of 5.2 mb, it is hard to have a good speed.

Number of Requests

This one is yet another significant parameter to judge a framework’s performance, and this is how the three frameworks stack up:
A website built on Genesis demands 19 requests to be made, which is not a bad number at all. This again reflects the good performance Genesis provides to the websites that are using this framework.
Headway, on the other hand, requires only 12 requests. With such low number of requests, you can further get the idea how fast a Headway website can get.
Pagelines measures up just fine with the number of request the website built on it requires. At 21, it certainly needs lesser number of requests than a whole lot of other frameworks around.

The above three parameters should give you a clear eyed idea about which framework should you go for when it is time to selecting one. Apart from these, there are other characteristics that define each of these frameworks.

Search engine friendly structure is a strong suit with all of them, thus ensuring that whichever way you go, you can enjoy a website that is equipped well to draw traffic from the organic sources. Flexibility is also something that you can find in god doses with all of these.
Talking specifically of the three parameters discussed with figures, while Genesis is what most recommend, the figures mentioned above certainly lean towards Headway. Take your pick.

About the Author:
Amanda Cline is a professional PHP Programmer with major interests in web technologies of all sorts. If you are looking to Hire PHP developers for your PHP-based project, you can get in touch with amanda on Twitter. She is currently employed with Xicom Technologies – the frontrunner in PHP development services.

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