X Theme – My Pick For The Best WordPress Theme for 2016

X Theme is, hands down, my favorite WordPress theme on the market right now.  I’ve built a handful of websites using it and it has revolutionized the way I build websites.

I’ve been developing for WordPress for nearly 10 years now, and in that time, I’ve seen a lot of changes to how websites are developed.  Needless to say, this is an industry that is not very forgiving to those who are not willing to change the way they do things.  I used work almost exclusively in Adobe Dreamweaver when it came time to develop.  Nowadays, I may not even touch Dreamweaver at all during a project.  (Don’t worry, Dreamweaver, you’ll always have a place in my heart.) [Cue Dreamweaver by Gary Wright].  Today, I can build an entire site from within the WordPress dashboard.  Well, almost.

So at first glance, it would seem that X theme is just another multi-theme template with a number of overly designed demos that appeal to the hope of what your website could look like.  If you’ve spent enough time browsing ThemeForest’s most popular themes, then you know the type of themes I’m talking about.  Avada, Enfold, BeTheme, and Jupiter just to name a few.  There are so many themes with such a large diversity of demos that you’d think it wouldn’t matter which one you choose.  What sets one theme apart from another?  Well in the case of X theme, it’s one thing– the page builder: Cornerstone.

Cornerstone Page Builder

Most themes come with some soft of page builder– WP Bakery’s Visual Composer, or Page Builder by SiteOrigin.  Both are great choices, but after about 10 minutes with Cornerstone I was hooked and haven’t looked back.

In theory, you don’t need to buy X Theme to get Cornerstone.  Cornerstone can be purchased independently for a mere $35, but with X, you also get access to all of the demo content.  X’s demos fall into 4 categories which are called Stacks.  So what makes Cornerstone so much better than other visual builders?

• It is 100% front end editing.  – The layout is setup with a left work area and a right preview area.  You click on the element you want to edit in the preview area and then modify it’s properties on the work area on the left.  What you see on the right is exactly what you get when you save the page.
• No more FTP – Since I started using Cornerstone and X Theme, I haven’t needed to use FTP or cPanel’s page editor.  I can add custom CSS from right in Cornerstone.
  

  An Example of The Left Hand CSS Editor

   

• Clutter-free:  The design interface just makes sense.  It took me about 10 minutes to get acquainted with the interface and no more than a half an hour to feel comfortable with it.
• Tons of Elements – Designing pages in Cornerstone all centers around it’s extensive element library: At the time of writing this there are 42 and counting:  images, alerts, lists, gaps, widget areas, maps, icons, buttons, code snippets, and many, many more.
• Support – The Themco community is large and it’s support seems to be pretty good.  I’ve found all the answers I’ve needed just by searching their forums.

As I mentioned, when you buy X Theme, cornerstone comes bundled with it.  In addition, you get some 2 dozen extensions with X.  For this reason along, I think it’s worth spending a little extra to get X.

• The Grid
• Convert Plug
• Layer Slider
• Revolution Slider
• Envira Gallery
• Content Dock
• and many more.

The Obligatory Cons

I don’t have much negative to say about X.  The licensing model seems to be the only downside.  Themco requires the purchase of a new license for each site you build, and apparently they have a way to track its usage.  This is an industry standard, and Themco certainly needs to make money as well, but a developer license would be a nice touch to a darn near perfect theme.

Should You Buy It?

Yes.  No question there.  It does require a working knowledge of WordPress, but whether you are a veteran designer or just starting out, X easily gets my full recommendation.

Where Can I Get It?

If you aren’t familiar with buying themes for WordPress, then you need to know that ThemeForest is your best choice.  I’ve included links where you can buy both X Theme and Cornerstone below:

X Theme

Cornerstone

If you have questions about X or Cornerstone, hit up the comments below.