101Geek
ENFOLD THEME REVIEW

Enfold Theme Review 2023 – Features, Pricing, Examples

The Enfold Theme enjoys great popularity with over 250,000 customers and is an Austrian success story. The developer Christian “Kriesi” Budschedl has created one of the best WordPress themes with his Enfold Theme. I will show you what the Multi-Purpose Theme can (and cannot) do in this article.

Enfold is extremely flexible and is not only aimed at WordPress beginners. If you take a closer look at the Enfold theme, you’ll see that it doesn’t score with the usual strengths and features. And that’s what makes this theme so extraordinary.

While other large themes come with premade demo layouts in the three-figure range, the Enfold Theme offers measly 28 theme demos. Also the demos don’t make the Hyper-Future design impression either. Why is the Enfold Theme still one of the best rated themes on the ThemeForest platform?

Enfold Theme advantages

I will not talk about the usual bullshit marketing advantages of the theme, which every other WordPress theme comes with or should come with. Responsive web design, WooCommerce compatibility, WPMl-ready etc. should be included in every premium theme for WordPress these days. The Enfold leaves nothing to be desired and needs no reason to hide away behind the Avada theme or other top dogs.

Own Layout Builder

enfold-avia-layout-architekt (1)

The Enfold Theme is based on the Avia Framework. Kriesi developed this framework especially for the Enfold Theme. This includes the Avia Layout Architect. This is the page builder of the Enfold Theme. In my eyes the most intuitive and clear page builder on the WordPress theme market. Unfortunately the Avia Layout Architect is only available for the Enfold Theme and not separately as a Page Builder.

In times of Divi Builder and Elementor the Avia Layout Architect seems a bit dusty. Nevertheless it is clear, streamlined and you can do everything with it. Also the grid (grid of the theme) is very clear and can be changed intuitively.

If you are familiar with the Avada theme and know the Visual Composer, you will be pleased with the clarity of the Avia Layout Architect.

Surely there are live-frontend editors nowadays, with which you can make ALL adjustments. But with many possibilities comes a high cognitive challenge. The Avia Layout Architect is logically structured and the elements are clearly arranged in tabs. This makes it easy to get started, especially for beginners.

Clean code

enfold-clean-code (1)

As a WordPress freelancer I usually throw myself headfirst into the code of the themes. And this is where the Enfold Theme can really make its mark. That’s why the Enfold Theme is also interesting for WordPress developers. Of course non-coders also benefit from the clean and logical code. This leads to fewer bugs and is also read optimally by Google (search engine optimization).

The clean code leads to fewer conflicts with plugins.

Furthermore, it makes it easier to integrate extras and other functions into the theme.

Loading time

The Enfold Theme reacts more often to new developments (DSGVO, cookies, pagespeed, etc) in web design. The website load time is an important ranking factor. That’s why the Enfold Theme gives you several ways to optimize the loading time.

Great feature: Unused elements of the Enfold Theme are not loaded at all. This way the theme reduces its own load time.

Developer Options

As a developer, the Enfold Theme offers you the perfect starting point for your new project. Many hooks and filters allow you to make extensive adjustments to the theme in a way that makes it update proof. In addition, you can mark up each element with its own CSS class (or ID). Especially the CSS code is extremely user-friendly and semantic. Other themes (like the Avada theme) can take a leaf out of their book.

That’s why the Enfold theme is also very well suited for agencies.

enfold for devs

Restrained design

What sounds like a disadvantage at first can also be an advantage. Due to its understated (old-fashioned?) design, the Enfold theme leaves a lot of room for your customization. Bad if you just want to install a demo and that’s it. Good if you have created your own custom screen design and want to use the Enfold theme as a WordPress base.

Enfold Theme Disadvantages

You probably already noticed that I am an absolute Enfold fan. Okay: I admit it! Most of the WordPress projects I did last year were done with Enfold. The Enfold theme is just perfect for my needs and use cases. As an absolute beginner who wants to build a hyper-future website with just a few clicks, Enfold might not be optimal. So here are the Enfold Theme drawbacks.

Few Demos

As mentioned above, there are only 28 pre-built demos for the Enfold Theme. These represent many industries:

  • Blog
  • Business Website
  • Comming Soon Website
  • Photography Portfolio
  • Restaurant Theme
  • One Page Layout
  • Startup Business Theme
  • Store Theme
  • Wedding website
  • Churches Website
  • Construction Theme
  • Landing Page Website
  • Lifestyle Blog with Enfold
  • Minimal Portfolio Theme
  • Hotel Website
  • Spa Website
  • Travel Theme
  • Consulting Theme
  • App Demo Page
  • Health Coach Website Demo
  • Fitness Studio Theme

Nevertheless, other themes are much better positioned to score here. If you look at the list of the best WordPress themes you will find many themes with demos in the three-digit range. So if you just wanted to install a demo (which is also possible with Enfold with one click), you might want to have a look at the DIVI theme. The Enfold theme is only partially suitable here.

No live editor

Live front end editors seem to be very trendy these days. The Enfold Theme comes with a great Page Builder. But this is far away from live-frontend editing. You always have to click save and refresh the page. For me this is part of it since day 1. But the Enfold Theme runs stable. But if you are unsure about the design and use the trial-and-error principle, the whole saving and updating process can be very time-consuming.

Restrained design

Granted: The theme’s own typography is a disaster. I have to edit it for every project. The body text is definitely too small and also the many headlines with small caps (capital letters) are hard to read.

In addition, many themes nowadays come with soft shadows and extremely “apple”-ized. In contrast, the design of the Enfold theme is very spartan and not very trendy. That’s why you should make design adjustments. As a trained designer, I usually look forward to this work. But if you are aesthetically challenged, you should go for other themes.

Enfold Theme Shortcodes & Elements

The Avia Layout Architect structures all elements under the four tabs Layout Elements, Content Elements, Media Elements, Plugin Supplements. Each element has a number of options, which in turn are structured in tabs. This makes the Enfold Theme quite clear despite its increased complexity. In the following I will introduce the individual elements.

Layout Elements

The Layout Elements tab deals exclusively with the grid. These are the columns of your website. Here you can define rough layouts. The width of the entire container (1/1) can be adjusted under Enfold Theme -> General Layout -> Dimensions. The default width of the container is 1310px.

Parallax backgrounds and video backgrounds can be implemented with the color section. The color-section is always full-width. When creating raster layouts you should always group semantic blocks in a color section.

Content Elements

38 content elements are at your disposal. Especially nice elements are the Icon Lists, Tab Sections, Accordion, Post Slider, Process Bar and the Customer Recommendations. You can build great websites with them.

Media elements

Media element describes everything visual. There are pictures, videos (also possible via lazy-load), galleries and sliders. Here you can also find Google Maps. Somehow it is also a picture. Especially the Accordeon Slider is beautiful and versatile. You can also assign an input animation to each picture.

Plugin additions

Here you can find everything that was somehow integrated into the Enfold Theme via plugin. Most of it is probably from WooCommerce. So you can add WooCommerce product sliders, product grids and more. You can also use them to build your own product subpage.

Enfold Theme – Suitable for everyone?

As mentioned above, the Enfold Theme is not suitable for everyone. Surely it is my favorite theme because I know the code almost by heart over the years. Apropro: Enfold Freelancer wanted? 😉

If you don’t know CSS at all and don’t want to deal with it further, you will quickly reach the limits of the theme with the manageable demos. So if you are not technically versed and don’t mind writing a few lines of CSS, you should choose another WordPress theme. Just have a look at the The best WordPress Themes article from me. Here you will also find themes that can offer you 300 ready-made demos. So you can create your own individual website with just a few clicks.

So if you are a developer looking for a stable and valid theme, you are well advised to use the Enfold Theme. Many features and animations are already there and you don’t have to start from scratch. The Avia Framework is in no way inferior to other frameworks and will be further developed. With a little practice you can even create your own content elements and integrate them into the Avia Layout Architect. This allows your customers to use these elements themselves via drag and drop.

Beginners should rather use the DIVI theme. For advanced WordPress users, the Enfold theme offers the necessary code freedom. The Enfold Theme is also worth a look for agencies.

Examples – The Enfold in use

A picture is worth a thousand words. And a website more than an Enfold field report. That’s why I’ve put together some website examples based on Enfold.

enfold-demos (1)

Tips, plugins & tricks for the Enfold Theme

Also for the Enfold Theme there are addons, tips and know-how I have collected over the last years. If you have also developed an addon or have extensions for the theme – make them available to the public. Write into the comments or send me a mail.

Enfold Theme drilled out – Hacks & Snippets

This point is aimed more at the Enfold Developer. There is a GIT: https://github.com/KriesiMedia/enfold-library/

There is no guarantee of completeness. Note that you should always make all changes in the functions.php of the child theme. If you are stuck at this point, you should keep your hands off the code so that your Enfold installation is not damaged. From now on it will be nerdy 😉

Enfold Actions, Hooks & Filter

You can add these hooks and filters to the functions.php of your child theme. The Enfold gives you a lot of freedom. For example, if you want to insert code after the navigation in the theme, this example will help you:

do_action(‘ava_after_main_menu’, ‘my_own_function’, 10);

function my_own_function()
{
echo '…This is a string output …';
}

Here you use the hook “ava_after_main_menu” of the theme and add your own function called “my_own_function” to it.

Felix Küster