 |
Editor Review
|
Top 10 Provider Awards
|
Themeforest Overview
Themeforest.net is powered by Envato, an online company geared to help individuals who are interested in making money through the internet. They operate a lot of different sites where you can buy and sell digital stuff online. The company also owns a wide network of blog sites where you can learn and develop your online creative skills.
Envato is based in Australia and was founded in 2006, although their huge network of workers come from all over the world. They are a world class open source (PHP code) and a creative company committed to creating high quality products and services for their worldwide clientele.
The company’s CEO is Collis Ta’eed while its founder is Cyan Ta’eed. Some of their many websites include a host of Envato marketplaces where you can buy and sell online digital goods: Tuts+, which is a wide network of online educational sites where you can learn online fields in graphics and development, audio and motion productions; The Netseter, which is a site designed to help people learn techniques in earning money online; WorkAwesome, which is for passionate people looking to start their own freelance business online; FreelanceSwitch, an online freelancer community website; AppStorm, a site for the latest in computer technology; Creattica, a site showcasing online galleries, 3D works, advertising, business cards, web design and more; and Rockable Press, which is an online publishing brand for freelance writers.
Their most profitable site, of course, is Themeforest where it is a marketplace for template developers (Wordpress, Joomla, Magento etc.) to sell their products and for template users to purchase them. This review only touches on their Wordpress theme section.
Theme Functionality
Themeforest is not short of world-class WP theme developers. If you are looking for excellent theme functionality, then you’ve definitely come to the right place.
Themeforest has the most extensive network of tools that will surely provide you with every single detail you would need to succeed with your online website attempt, beginning with their premium WP themes of course.
The theme functionality is mainly categorized in three main sets: blog, e-commerce and CMS. CMS or Content Management System is great for online websites operating on WordPress technology looking for a professional premium WP theme to work with. Their CMS functional WP themes are designed to manage your websites in a collaborative environment. This allows you to:
• Effectively manage a large number of contributed, shared and stored web data
• Control and customize all access to data
• Help you easily store and retrieve data
• Reduce duplicate input
• Improve report writing on your site
• Optimize traffic to your site
Their blog functionality, as the name implies, is best for any type of blog site. Most of their themes are updated to the latest WP 3.0 version and are widget ready. E-commerce, on the other hand, is mostly geared towards sites which are on the retail or buy and sell business.
Each theme has their unique features and is coded with various framework depending on the standard set by the different theme developers, in which there are over 100 of them.
Theme Graphics
With over 750 different premium WP themes to choose from, we can safely say that you will most definitely find the perfect theme graphic you are looking for. Themeforest is almost comparable to Woothemes in such a way that both WP theme providers offer the most extensive array of premium WP theme graphics but the latter is only better.
Themeforest theme graphics play in the areas of the blog or magazine types, the creative type, the corporate and retail business types, technology-related sites, non-profit types, entertainment style, miscellaneous and many others.
Theme Pricing- base on August 2010 data
Themeforest offers one of the lowest rates among the various WP theme providers today, with the exception of those who offer them free of course. Their price ranges from as low as $12 to as high as $47 per theme. The company doesn’t really offer any special deals or combos while most of their competitors operate on a 3-in-1, 4-in-1 or a special discount to buy all themes.
If you are a web developer wanting to use Wordpress themes for your client, you are allowed to use Themeforest’s themes but you can’t take credit for the original work of the theme because the graphics and Javascripts (if any) are copyrighted. If you want to put something like “Designed by (your company)” in the theme that you customize for your client, we would recommend you to purchase the packages offered by Studiopress or Woothemes as all their themes are released under 100% GPL.
To browse through their wide list of themes and prices, please visit their Wordpress theme directory.
Theme Support
Although Themeforest’s support operates 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, the support of individual themes is not handled by Themeforest’s staff. If you encounter any issues with the theme, you have to seek help directly from the developers. There are three support channels:
• Discussion section – you can post your issues and the theme developer will address them. The response time and helpfulness varies among different developers. We have seen quite a lot of developers not taking care of their customers well.
• Theme Documentation – some themes have good documentation while others are not.
• FAQ section – not every theme has this section.
We feel the consistency of the theme support is very important. In Themeforest, unfortunately, it is not possible due to the nature of the business.
Theme License
Split-GPL license
• GPL for PHP, XHTML
• non-GPL for CSS, Javascript and theme images
Author: ThemeGrade Editor
We are Wordpress enthusiast who like to blog about Wordpress development, internet marketing and design ideas. Check out the latest updates of this site @ThemeGrade
Get The Latest ThemeGrade Articles Quick & Easy.
Subscribe to our RSS feed or Get Email Updates sent directly to your inbox!
Themeforest (Envato) offers some unique WP themes, but its system is designed to cater to the developers, not the customers. Where I come from, that’s backwards.
Case and point:
I recently purchased Pandia from a developer named Peerapong – http://themeforest.net/item/pandia-for-portfolio-agency-creative-business/575976?WT.ac=portfolio_thumb&WT.seg_1=portfolio_thumb&WT.z_author=peerapong.
It’s a very nice design. I spent a lot of time and created over 100 pages with this theme. I began to discover issues like the theme would not display correctly on specific computers, depending on IE explorer settings. I posted a comment on Themeforest and was told to open up a support ticket on Themegoods. I did. It sat there for over 20 days with no response. I posted again on Themeforest website where Peerapong said “nothing is wrong, it’s my device.”
Then a larger issue arose. You can’t create separate blogs or categories. I wanted Blog A to post from Category A and Blog B to post from Category B – common stuff. It wouldn’t work with Peerapong’s Pandia. Blog A & B would BOTH post from Categories A & B.
I submitted several comments on Themeforest and Peerapong offered no support. I then opened up a support ticket on Themegoods for the same issue. This is where is starts to get good. Peeraong’s response to my support ticket was, “I do not have to offer support, I can offer support if I choose to but only offer support to those with the right attitude.” Wow. Really?
What followed this was my support accounts at Themegoods being erased. Any negative comment on Themeforest about Peerapong was removed, and my entire Envato Account was disabled, which doesn’t allow me access to any of my other purchases fro Codecanyon.
Classy. I don’t know any company can do business in this fashion but I predict it will not last.
To anyone considering any purchases from Themeforest – Caveat Emptor.
This is a great website which provides a lot of useful information. I personally use elegant WordPress Themes templates and consider it well worth paying a little up front to save a lot of time and work.
I certainly intend to check out Themeforest having seen this blog and will also bookmark this blog for future valuable content.
I was looking for some templates to suit the various sites I have for my blogs and business. I didn’t have to jump from one theme provider to another. Because thankfully, you had it all for me!
after strolling through endless of themes on their website, i finally found the one that game me the greatest value. they have a lot of themes to choose from so you’ll definitely find the one you need.
“Together is better for sure”
Let us all unite under Themeforest’s Unite and say, it’s the best theme ever!
The design is crisp and highly attractive. It’s an organized way to display content to make it so easy to find.
“found what I was looking for”
i was having a hard time picking wordpress themes from certain providers and i got just what i wanted with theme forest. there were 750 themes! way to go for providing wide range of selection.
I used a variety of WordPress themes from different brands and I have to say, themes from Theme Forest got so much traffic in my blog site, I am smiling from ear to ear. You’re the best.
Theme Forest is the best marketplace ever for wordpress premium themes! I’m amazed how they have every single design and functionality you can ever think of for your website! Hundreds of developers and thousands of themes available!
Themegarden.com is another site where you can buy and sell Wordpress themes but when it comes to the quantity of themes, Themeforest reigns!
Theme Forest has some of the most excellent top quality WP theme developers in the industry today!
Why go with any one company who manufactures the same themes over and over when you can go with an exceptionally diverse company like them?
“Really Great Developers!”
Glad I browsed through Themeforest’s catalogue and found that they carry some of the most amazing developer themes out there!
The company isn’t a theme developer. Their website is only a market place designed to sell themes.
Really cheap prices
I guess what’s great with Themeforest having a lot of different developers and themes is that they are competing with one another, making their products and services much better, while making an effort to reduce prices for customers.
I wanted a WP template that went beyond the 2D slider. Most providers offer 2D and here comes Theme Forest with the 3D slider. I just went into the future and is more awesome than ever.
Weren’t premium themes supposed to make your life easier? Themeforest had succeeded in the impossible, making it too confusing for people.
Sorry for the criticism but you really have to rethink the way you do business here.
“very competitive”
I was surprised about how competitive the designs you find in TF. They have just about any design you may need for your site at great prices.
Most of which are very highly customizable and are very easy to update.
“THEY REALLY HELPED ME!”
I was starting out my first website a couple of months back and was quite nervous about it. I’m glad I stumbled upon Themeforest ‘cause they really helped me with the basics that I needed.
“They have just about everything”
Themeforest just about has every developer package and theme pricing you can ever imagine! You can go with their higher end developer themes at higher prices or opt for the more affordable ones.
“It is very confusing”
I have never been so confused in my life! I wanted to use Word Press for my website because my friends have told me that it is the easiest way to design and publish my website online so I did, but they said I need a WP theme design.
A friend of mine highly recommended Themeforest because according to him they offered a big variety of WP themes and some came in really cheap so I went for it.
But honestly people want to keep it simple and their website, I believe, is designed to confuse many and they succeeded at that.
They are selling a lot of stuff that I didn’t need and you have to get to a thousand pages before you get to where you want to go.
My friend helped me to the process and I got Freshface but I’m seriously considering switching!
I am very glad to have found the Sleex theme for my blog site on Theme Forest! I am very impressed with this theme which incorporates the latest WP technology in multiple stylish skins with highly customizable widgets and pages – post templates!
I haven’t even started with half of it as it has a host of helpful functions that you will surely love.
“A nice gem I found in Themeforest.”
Stylize has an Ajax/PHP contact form which works in all browsers and a valid XHTML and CSS that is well documented. Enough about the technical terms, simply put, it looks great and is perfect for web developers. This developer theme is from Ghostpool and features 10 different backdrop styles with short codes and custom templates.
I would have to say, though, that it is a bit hard to navigate Themforest’s site as they look more like a marketplace than a theme provider.. in fact, it is.