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Headway Theme Review: My Love-Hate Relationship With Headway

Feb 17, 2012 - Written By - Amit
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headway theme framework reviewWhen I installed my first WordPress website, I was pretty excited and couldn’t wait to sort out the design and make the site look great.

At that time I had heard of WordPress themes, which were good options for beginners. All you needed to do was choose a design that you liked and once installed, you had that design on your site right away. So I searched the internet for these magical themes and liked one called Arthemia. Here is a demo of the theme [click]. I installed it and my site looked exactly like the one in the demo. I could then change a few things like the colours and what appeared on the home page, without using any code. This was all through simple options that the theme added to my WordPress admin panel.

I was happy for a while.

But as my site grew and I learnt more about WordPress, things changed. I realised that the theme had quite a few shortcomings, especially since I was not a coder/developer:

  • I could only change basic things like colours and position of a few elements, without using code. For the rest I needed to make changes to the core files of the theme, which wasted a lot of time and often broke things.
  • I had limited flexibility in choosing the layout of different pages of my website. The theme default was one large column on the left and one small sidebar on the right. I had to stick to this for all pages.
  • For any functionality that I wanted to add to my site, I had to install plugins. Even for the smallest and most basic things.
  • In general, I found that the theme was weak and often things got messed-up when I installed new plugins and so on.
  • I also thought that my site was loading slower than what was normal.

Standalone themes will all have these problems.

Lucky for me, by that time I knew about wordpress theme frameworks, which are like standalone themes on steroids and could overcome all these issues. I switched to a theme framework and MY GOD – WHAT A DIFFERENCE! EASY, FLEXIBLE AND POWERFUL!

I did my research on 3 of the most well known wordpress theme frameworks – Thesis, Genesis and Headway – and picked Headway themes, which I used on all my sites [like this one].

Here’s what I loved about the Headway theme framework:

  • It solved all the issues I was facing with my previous theme.
  • It was super easy for a beginner to use. I could change minute details on my site, without any coding.
  • Furthermore, the interface is perfect for non-developers and it allowed me to design my site in a visual/intuitive way.
  • I could see the difference in my sites performance, when running on a solid framework.
  • The support is great.

But then a few months back Headway themes announced that they were releasing a new version, which was a major upgrade and was revolutionary.

“What’s wrong with that you say?”

Shortly after the new version was rolled-out, there was quite an uproar on the Headway member forums. This was because, there were many bugs that were not sorted out and there was no way for people using the existing version to automatically upgrade to the new version – unless they deleted the old one, installed the new and designed their website from scratch.

I loved Headway much less at that point and was quite upset.

The Headway team acknowledged that they released the new version too soon and apologised to clients. They had set a deadline for releasing the new version and stuck to it no matter what. That led to all the problems.

But they bounced back. The team worked day-and-night to sort out ALL the problems and help customers through the transition.

My old sites are still on the previous version of Headway, however, I decided to try the new version on this website. And it lived-up to the initial hype. I could literally draw my website. Check out these videos to see what I mean.

Headway Themes 3.0 Preview

>Headway Themes 3.0 Grid System

 

But there’s a catch. When I bought Headway it was for a one-time payment of around $ 70. When they released version 3.0, the price went up! It’s now starts at $68 per year, or, a one-time payment of $587.

If you can afford it, then I highly recommend Headway, otherwise you could try Thesis, Genesis or Woo Themes.

Headway Theme Review: My Love-Hate Relationship With Headway4Amit2012-02-17 10:48:03When I installed my first WordPress website, I was pretty excited and couldn’t wait to sort out the design and make the site look great.

At that ti…

Written By: Amit

Amit is an entrepreneur, online marketer and career advisor. In a previous life, he's worked with Bain, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Amit has masters degrees in Business, Finance and Organisational Psychology.

  • http://headwayexpert.com/how-to-manually-upgrade-from-headway-2-0-to-3-0-30min-video/ Corey Freeman | Head

    I can agree with the complicated relationship, but I guess I'd call it a love-"stop doing weird things when other people are watching please" kind of deal. Yes they released 3.0 too early, but 3.0.5 is definitely stable enough to build a website from. I think the ramifications of the release incident have passed, and the community should focus now on learning 3.0x.

    For those wanting to upgrade now, I did an impromptu video on converting a site from 2.0 to 3.0 using the theme test drive plugin to keep the 2.0 site up. Link is attached to my author name :)

    • Amit

      Wow that’s some quick commenting Corey…..I just published the post :) .

      Well said and I agree. The current version of Headway is great and worked perfectly for me.

      • http://headwayexpert.com/how-to-manually-upgrade-from-headway-2-0-to-3-0-30min-video/ Corey Freeman | Head

        I follow any headway-related tweets, in case there's a chance to help someone out or get out there in the community more. I just setup a search for "headway theme", "headway themes", and of course "#headwaywp"

        • Amit

          Figured.

          Checked-out your video and will be trying to move some of my smaller sites over to Headway 3.0. Given how much I use Headway, I'll certainly be following your activity Corey..

          Just started this website, so thanks for dropping-by and leaving the first comment!

  • terrierlogic

    I found your review while researching Headway, since they don’t offer a trial period I’m trying to vet it out carefully.   I’m frustrated with trying to customize poorly designed themes, so Headway obviously appeals to me and your comments are really helpful.   One thing that I’m concerned about, not in reading your review but in looking at your blog, and I hope you don’t mind if I ask…  I notice you have no padding for your text, i.e. your text butts right into the left and right borders  – is this by choice, or was it forced, i.e. does Headway not give you leeway to add padding or margins?   

    • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

      Yes, after releasing the new version, Headway is quite pricey. So definitely a good idea to do enough research.
      I added a border around the content recently and hadn’t gotten around to increasing the padding. I did that today, after reading your comment -so thanks for the reminder :) .

      Which other themes have you tried so far (and found frustrating)?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ana-Rusness-Petersen/506472315 Ana Rusness-Petersen

    Is it worth “testing” Headway at the $68 and then if I like it, buying the lifetime $587?

    • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

      Hi Ana,

      Although the pricing structure was different when I bought Headway, that’s exactly what I did. 

      I first tried the lower priced offering and then after I liked what I saw, I upgraded to the package which had lifetime updates and unlimited use.

  • http://www.facebook.com/shashwathacharya Shashwath Acharya

    Is this site created using headway theme?

    • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

      Hi Shashwath - Yes it is.

      • http://www.facebook.com/shashwathacharya Shashwath Acharya

        Great! What is your comparison between genesis and headway?
        Have you written some blog on it.

        • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

          I think the main difference is in how you can build a site, with each of the frameworks. For someone without any developing/coding skills, Headway provides great flexibility /control and with the drag-and-drop interface I can make a site quite easily/quickly. Genesis doesn’t have the drag-and-drop features but has an excellent support system, with tons of ready-made themes and specialised designers.

  • http://twitter.com/PR_Chase P.R. Chase

    What happens to your site after the year is up when you use the base package? Is this a “stuck in it for life” situation? My client is already paying for a domain and hosting, will they be required to pay for the theme for the life of the website as well after the initial cost?

    • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

      I’m afraid so.

      As per the Headway site, at the moment –

      “Access to updates, support, and documentation is for a period of 1 year. You may renew your license for 25% off the original price.”

      So that comes to a yearly charge of $65

  • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

    Hi Sailee,

    I assume that you are referring to the $587 mentioned in my post. That was for a lifetime license i.e. without the need to pay the yearly renewal fee.

    Headway has changed their pricing and it looks like that option is no longer available.

  • John

    Cool beans. I like headway themes.

  • Kris

    Hmm… on Headway website I can read: price $87 –
    Unlimited Use and Installations for Life
    I think you should renew licence ($22) only if you want to maintain your access to updates, support etc.

    • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

      That’s correct Kris. In my view that effectively means making a yearly payment to use Headway. Because using an old version of the theme can lead to various issues.

      The license renewal price will be $65.25 i.e. 25% off the original price paid

  • Cool Guy

    What is the difference between Base Licence for $87 and Developer Licence for $174. Can you explain about it.

    thanks,

    Cool Guy

    • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

      At the moment Headway Developer Licence seems to have these additional benefits:

      - 4 Headway Extend Credits ($116 Value) Can only be redeemed on official themes and blocks from Headway Themes.

      - Early Beta Access to Major UpdatesDoesn’t really justify the additional price in my view.

      Typically the Base licence would only have a single installation and the Developer licence would allow multiple installations, but that’s not the case with Headway Themes. They have unlimited installations for both Base and Developer.

  • Miss_Psychette

    Hi Amit,
    Great post, agree with all of this — it all happened to me too! Just to be clear — if I want to use Headway to build another (whole new) website, I need to purchase it again… right? If so, then what does Headway’s website mean when they talk about your ‘License’ and ‘extending your credits’?

    • http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/ Amit

      Hi Miss_Psychette,

      When you purchase Headway you can use it on an unlimited number of websites. However, this is only for a period of 1 year.

      At the end of each year, you will need to renew your license i.e. pay again (at 25% off the original price you paid), if you want to continue getting updates and use the latest version of the theme.

  • Mike

    I have just had two days of Headway and two day’s of headache, I’m sure that the experienced computer geek love’s solving all the problems it presents, but as a non geek I found it annoying in the extreme. The first problem is that the documentation sucks, you are left in no man’s land after the first three instruction, “why isn’t the box there?”, “How do you do the simple things?” Don’t get me wrong, I think it is probably a great leap forward in website building accessibility, it’s just not accessible to me and if it’s not accessible to the non geek, what’s the point? The geeks will figure it out anyway.