Getspace

ColibriWP Review: your next WordPress site starts here.

getspace123 — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 14:57:32 +0000

When WordPress started it was pretty obvious that it needed all the help it could get. Beginnings are usually bumpy.

The moment a community was shaped around WordPress, creating themes and plugins, WordPress took off.

When the WordPress builders showed up, the game changed again. Now, WordPress is used by over 455 million websites in 2020. This means a market share around 35%.

Today, we want to introduce to you an important player in the WordPress ecosystem: the Colibri WordPress theme and the Colibri builder. The theme is listed among the most popular top 20 WordPress themes. Now, we’re going to treat the theme and builder as a whole. Why, so? We’ll explain below.

The moment you install the Colibri theme, it will pre-install the Colibri builder as a plugin. The moment you activate the plugin, you’ll get access to tons of features, that, otherwise you’ll definitely miss. The builder simply upgrades the theme’s functionalities, making it truly powerful. The most powerful of all is the fact that you’ll design your whole WordPress site in a single interface (from header till footer) by DRAG and DROP!

Now, let’s dig more into the Colibri functionalities.

Colibri: the Features

Colibri comes jam-packed with:

90+ website templates for a variety of niches
150+ ready-made content blocks
40+ drag & drop components

This means that there’s a lot of flexibility that you can use to your advantage.

Now, let’s get into some more details.

Colibri: the website templates

If you like to stay in control, and have already figured out exactly what you want, you can always start your website from scratch.

If you’re in a hurry, there are 90+ pre-designed templates at your service. You can choose from various themes: freelance, arts, business, health, and more.

Just head over to the WordPress dashboard and select “Colibri Settings from the “Appearance” submenu. Then pick a template from the “Demo sites” section.

If you go with “Try Online” you’ll be directed to a Colibri cloud account.

This is a temporary account. The moment you log in, you’ll be able to save your themes, redesign them later, or use them on whichever site you like. You can apply your creative design to your website with a few clicks only.

If you go for option2, “Import”, you’ll we promoted with a message such as this one:

The import process is short. In just a few minutes you can head over to Appearance-> Customizer and start designing your site!

Colibri: work within a single interface
You can design your website in a single interface, never having to go back to the WordPress dashboard. With other themes you still have to customize your footer or sidebar in the WordPress dashboard. It can be confusing understanding which goes where.

The builder itself just takes the WordPress customizer to a whole new level. You’ll never want to go back again.

Design a pixel-perfect website with no code

The UI elements are really intuitive. They allow you to customize every detail of every section, block or component until it matches your mision.

Borders, spacings, font-sizes, you are a slider away from customizing everything.

The left-hand side panel is where all the magic happens.

“Content”, “Style” and “Advanced” – these are the panel’s options for every block, component or section you want to customize.

Designer-made blocks & components
These modules are here to get you closer to your dream website. They will always match your global color scheme and typography.

The blocks are more complex than components. There are more block categories that you can choose from: Hero, about, features, team, portfolio, and more.

One of the coolest features of Colibri is the fact that you can create your own sections and reuse them later in another design!

Now, an important thing to know is that, depending on your plan, free or paid, your access to blocks differs. If you’re using the paid plan, you’ll see a “Pro” badge on the blocks that aren’t available to you.

We’ll cover the free and paid plans to the end of this review.

Components can vary from simple modules such as a button, to more complex ones, such as accordions or pricing tables.

Mobile responsiveness
The Colibri theme is mobile-friendly. The sections adjust out of the box to various screen sizes.

You can always preview your site on mobile or tablet, from the left-hand side panel, if you go straight to the bottom.

The moment you select a specific section, if you go to Advanced (on the left), you can decide whether a specific section should appear or not on a certain device. It’s well known that on mobile you don’t need to have the same amount of information like on desktop.

Important: the styling changes you do in one mode (desktop, tablet or mobile) do not affect the other modes. Content changes will affect all modes.
Now, always check how your website looks on tablet and mobile. We know that this can be something that gets easily forgotten.

Other features

In-line editing – you can edit the text straight in the website preview area (with some tiny exceptions: eg: lists, which are managed in the left-hand side panel).
Intuitive interface – everything was built having you in mind, so that the whole website design experience is as smooth as it gets.
Great support team – you can always open a ticket from Appearance -> Colibri Settings, or send them an email at support@colibriwp.com.
Plugin recommendations – if you head over to Appearance -> Colibri Settings, you’ll see that Colibri recommends installing a few plugins that deal with website optimization and security, email marketing, and more. They are top of the class plugins.
Short learning curve

Colibri: Free or PRO?

Like I mentioned earlier, Colibri has both free and paid plans. The free plan is a good fit for simple websites or blogs.

Now, let’s see what do the Free and Pro Colibri versions have in common:

Access to the Colibri Cloud platform
Live editing inside the Customizer
Header and navigation menu layouts
Image and gradient backgrounds
Mobile responsiveness
Pre-designed content blocks and website templates
Graphical section dividers

Like I mentioned earlier, Colibri comes jam-packed with predefined templates and blocks, but not all of them are available in the free plan.

	Colibri Free	Colibri Pro
Pre-designed website templates	3	60+
Pre-designed content blocks	34	170+
Front page header designs	5	20+
Header layout options	3	17
Navigation menu layouts	2	5
Pre-designed footer blocks	1	6

Colibri Pro spices things even more:

Full control over typography and colors
Unlimited video and slideshow backgrounds
4 header media types: image, video, lightbox, image collage.
Advanced styling features
New blocks: Google maps, counters, photo-gallery
Priority technical support for a year
Multi Language support
Basic Woocommerce functionalities

In terms of pricing, the Colibri WordPress theme is similar to other themes on the market. No holes in your pocket.

If you intend to create more websites, you can go for a business or agency plan. If you’re not convinced that Colibri is the right theme for you, you can go for a yearly plan. Each plan also has a lifetime option.

Important! After the license expiry date, you will still have access to pro features, but you won’t be receiving updates or support.

ColibriWP – Our Conclusions

What we didn’t enjoy

The fact that Colibri is not a good fit for advanced online stores.

What we liked

Colibri:

Works by DRAG & DROP, folks!
Has an intuitive interface.
Needs no code, but if you like to get dirty, you can always add your own CSS or HTML.
Is responsive.
There are tons of designs to choose from (templates, blocks, components).

Now, don’t take us for our word, take Colibri for a free spin and decide if you’re a match.

Over and out!

Migrate to Direct Admin

Register for a free consultation

The post ColibriWP Review: your next WordPress site starts here. appeared first on Getspace.

cPanel vs DirectAdmin. Why Consider Migrating to DA?

getspace123 — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 07:55:12 +0000

After the last cPanel price hike, many hosting service providers started looking for alternative web panels. Only a year has passed and yet there’s another cPanel price increase that is causing an outrage in the web hosting community.

As a result, alternative web panels, such as DirectAdmin, are getting more attention than ever. cPanel has been the leader in the industry for quite a while, so why consider migrating from it to DirectAdmin? To answer that, let’s compare the key features.

1. User Interface (UI) – the main difference in terms of usability for the cPanel vs DirectAdmin interface is that DirectAdmin is less overwhelming. The DirectAdmin UI has four main categories, four interface styles and three access levels that can be merged into one interface. Whereas cPanel‘s features are split into collapsible categories that might seem quite overwhelming. Both have clean, modern interfaces, though.
2. Third-party apps and integrations – when it comes to plugins, there is no doubt cPanel offers more and even includes custom code options. While DirectAdmin lets you choose from plugins to extend functionality, they can be limiting.
3. Pricing – the previous and upcoming cPanel price hikes have definitely made DirectAdmin the more attractive option price-wise.

When many think of web control panels, the most common option that comes to mind is cPanel. And it‘s completely normal, since they have been a titan of the industry for over 20 years, offering a powerful platform for all company sizes.

It’s no secret that cPanel has overwhelmingly more features than DirectAdmin and due to the years of trust with cPanel it’s hard for users to let go regardless of the new pricing structure. However, due in large part to the spike in licensing costs, you may not find it the most cost-effective solution, much like many hosting providers.

Getspace uses cPanel for hosting due to customer request. However, our team has been a part of the development of DirectAdmin, so we’re happy to state, we are experts in context of this panel.

DirectAdmin provides all the functionality you would ever need as a User, Reseller or Server Admin to successfully manage websites. It is a budget-friendly alternative that comes with virtually everything you would expect or need from a control panel.

The new design looks refreshingly simple, the interface is fairly easy to use and the active community is growing faster by the day. Overall, DirectAdmin seems to be the best option if you decide to leave cPanel.

Due to cPanel price increases, that are badly impacting small to medium businesses, a demand of migration from cPanel to DirectAdmin is growing every single day.

We are happy to help our clients with consultations on the migration process from cPanel to DirectAdmin and answer all the questions you might have and give solutions to problems that might occur. We promise to help you make this transition as fluent and smooth as possible.

Migrate to Direct Admin

Register for a free consultation

The post cPanel vs DirectAdmin. Why Consider Migrating to DA? appeared first on Getspace.

cPanel Price Increases Again In 2020. What You Need To Know.

getspace123 — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 14:44:47 +0000

cPanel is a well known supplier of a control panel to simplify hosting and server management. For more than 20 years it has been the leading hosting automation platform and is the preferred hosting control panel software worldwide.

It was announced on 1st October that even in the midst of a global pandemic and only a year after the last price hike, there will be a price increase taking effect on 1st January 2021. Naturally, this caused a wave of discussion and outrage in the web hosting community.

Why?

According to cPanel, they aim to increase product performance and develop features to generate more value for the customer. Though many argue that cPanel is using the big market share it has in the web hosting industry to enforce price hikes, since after the last price hike cPanel didn‘t lose that many customers.

And yet there are many features that have been highly requested by users for years and are still not being developed, let‘s hope that development will really follow the price and the product will be greatly improved.

On the other hand, it‘s not all bad, considering the fact that this price increase will further incentivise users to migrate and give a chance to other web panels, such as DirectAdmin.

What‘s going to happen?

During the global pandemic, many businesses have transfered online. Obviously, the need for websites and online stores has grown massively, which resulted in an increased demand for hosting services.

With cPanel increasing their prices again, most hosting service companies will have no choice but to adjust their server pricing accordingly, making the cheaper ones not so cheap anymore, or switch to DirectAdmin, or other web panels – regardless of whether they, or their customers, like that.

Getspace users

This situation is, of course, what nobody intended. We understand the impact that this cPanel pricing increase could have on your business and that this is not the fault of our users.

You are our priority. That’s why we are pleased to announce that Getspace will not change the prices of cPanel servers for the time being.

This pricing change has certainly been the talk of the office since it was first announced and many discussions have taken place on what should be done next. Making our clients happy is our most important task, that‘s why Getspace team is constantly working to find the right solutions to minimize the impact of such situations to our customers.

Powerful SSD Hosting

The post cPanel Price Increases Again In 2020. What You Need To Know. appeared first on Getspace.