The choice of a theme in WordPress has always been important. Either you go for the “all in one” themes that do everything for you (but often at the cost of speed) or you go for a minimal theme where you still have to create or configure everything yourself. The hello theme is such a minimal theme that on the other hand is very fast.
So Hello is a lightweight WordPress theme from the developers of the popular drag-and-drop Elementor page builder.
It is what many people would call a ‘plain-vanilla’ or ‘starter’ design. This means that the options are minimal but because of this, so is the amount of code (css and javascript). This of course benefits the speed of the theme.
In other words, it’s a minimal theme designed as a blank canvas for website owners and developers.
In this article, I want to show you what Hello can do. But also investigate why so many Elementor users have chosen this theme. I will also discuss the pros and cons.
You can download the WordPress theme at wordpress.org.
Review of the Elementor hello theme
What makes a good or a bad WordPress theme ?
There are a lot of gradations in that.
Is it the number of options a theme offers ? A theme like Avada has hundreds of options all of which you can set. But then are we talking about a good theme ?
Or maybe the support is an important factor ? Of course it is, but let’s not forget you only get professional support for paid themes.
Or the customization possibilities?
Speed
Or maybe the speed is the most important thing? Well, if this is your parameter, the hello theme is really a good choice.
Hello is very “light” in terms of server load. (It is lighter than most themes because it uses almost no styling and scripts.
Less site load and less code mean better SEO results for your site 👍. After all, since the introduction of core web vitals, speed of a website is even more important than before.
Below you’ll find a benchmark of the speed of two themes compared to each other. And the differences are really quite large. The same page loads in one case at 200ms, in the other case at 1.1 seconds.
Hello theme
Avada Theme
Video : gtmetrix test between Twenty Nineteen, Astra and Hello theme
You’ve had enough of all those “all in one” themes🤷♂️
A few years ago, so-called “pagebuilders” in WordPress were mainly used to make posts and pages look more professional. In recent years, however, pagebuilder plugins have expanded their functionality beyond content and website design.
With Elementor Pro’s templating system, you can customize headers and footers (header and footer), create unique templates for posts, change the layout of your search pages, and much more. That’s just for the (paying) pro version.
So you need the Pro version of Elementor to create your own header and footer. But there are enough free plugins out there which add extra features to elementor to really talk about a “theme destroyer”. After all, if you can use all functionality as above, who needs an elaborate theme ?
By the way, as of WordPress 5.8 (20/7/2021), you will also be able to create headers and footers with Gutenberg. This means that the emphasis will be less and less on the development of themes.
A very good plugin to get started creating header and footer via Elementor is “Elementor Header and Footer Builder”.
Unfortunately, “page builders” that allow you to customize your website design often clash with WordPress themes that actually allow you to do the same thing.
With the dominance of “all in one” WordPress themes that have hundreds of options, many Elementor users have switched to minimal themes, such as Hello, to avoid potential conflicts.
The advantages of the hello theme summarized 👍
- Fast loading time
- no redundant code
- It is a FREE theme (and will remain so)
- No modules, elements or things specific to a theme that you don’t need
- The possibility to extend the theme using small programming tools (via the so-called WordPress hooks)
- Specifically designed for use with Elementor and Elementor Pro (or plugins that extend the basic functionality of elementor)
- Compatible with all WordPress plugins
- easy to create landing pages
It is also a popular theme. as an illustration below the number of downloads of hello on wordpress.org.
Hello theme : number of downloads per day
Disadvantages of the hello theme
- confusing for the users who are used to working with themes
- you have to build all the elements yourself : header, footer, page, sidebar
- no support
- limited woocommerce
How to use the hello theme – short tutorial
As mentioned above, this is a lightweight theme. That means you’re basically getting a stripped down version with minimal functionality.
The real power of the hello theme is in the integration with elementor.
As I mentioned, there’s really not much you can customize with the Hello Theme – at least within the WordPress dashboard.
You can basically change the logo, icon and name of the site.
The intention is to build your theme with a page builder. Preferably with Elementor but also other page builders can be used.
You activate the header and footer builder through the “theme builder” and simply create the header and footer yourself. But as said before, this is only possible with the paying PRO version.
But you can also do this for free. You can use the plugin “elementor header and footer” to create your own header and footer without having to subscribe to Elementor.
Under “Appearance” you will find an extra menu item which allows you to create your own header and footer without paying a pro subscription.
Hello Elementor child theme
As mentioned before in our article about child themes, it is helpful to work with a so-called child theme. This is standard practice if you use WordPress themes and want to control your theme afterward.
Now you won’t find the Hello child theme on wordpress.org, but you will find it on Github.
Just click on the green button “clone or download” and then click on “download zip”.
This will give you a zip file on your computer’s hard drive.
You can now use this theme to add it to your WordPress installation. At that time, this theme will use Hello as its parent theme.
Elementor themes : a short list
Are you looking for the best Elementor themes?
Because obviously in this article we are discussing the Hello theme but that doesn’t mean that there are no other WordPress themes that are also compatible with Elementor but still offer more basic functionality than Hello.
Because of the popularity of Elementor, there are many WordPress themes that are made specifically for Elementor.
Below we list some of the best Elementor themes that you can use to build professional looking websites and that work very well with Elementor.
OceanWP
OceanWP is a very good theme that works well with Elementor. It’s certainly not an “all in one” theme with hundreds of options (which can slow you down) but it has a bit more bells and whistles than Hello. The golden mean as it were.
Astra Theme vs Hello theme
The Astra theme is a very good theme that I recommend 100%. It is a good balance between the advantages of a theme with all the options and possibilities but at the same time it is a fast theme.
GeneratePress
GeneratePress is also a very minimal theme that you can expand by checking the various options (paid version).
Conclusion
The hello theme is a great creation from the Elementor team, but you need to know what it’s for and how to use it.
If you plan to fully customize your own WordPress theme using Elementor Pro and want it to be super fast and lightweight, hello is a great option.
If you still want your theme to be created using the Customizer and have no interest in purchasing Elementor Pro, then it’s not for you.
But in my opinion, themes are something that are disappearing and their position is going to be taken more and more by page builders that can create and manage anything.
