For a long time, the question was, “Which one do you choose?” Today, the answer is different. As an expert who builds professional websites for a living, I can tell you the modern workflow isn’t about choosing one over the other. It’s about combining the strengths of both.

You can use the Genesis Framework for its “under-the-hood” excellence and pair it with Elementor Pro’s Theme Builder to take complete, pixel-perfect control of your site’s design. This article explores that powerful combination. We’ll cover what the Genesis Framework is, why it’s still relevant, and the 15 best Genesis themes you can use as a starting point for your 2025 projects.

Key Takeaways

  • Genesis is a Framework, Not Just a Theme: Genesis acts as a secure, fast, and SEO-optimized parent theme. You then install a “child theme” on top of it, which controls the visual design and layout.
  • Modern Workflow has Changed: Most modern Genesis child themes are built for the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg), not for page builders. They are designed for one-click demo imports to get a site running quickly.
  • The Elementor “Best of Both Worlds” Method: The most powerful way to use Genesis and Elementor together is to install a lightweight Genesis child theme (like Monochrome Pro) and then use Elementor Pro’s Theme Builder to create and assign a custom global header, footer, archive, and single post templates. This gives you Genesis’s rock-solid foundation with 100% of Elementor’s design freedom.
  • Genesis Pro vs. Hosting: You can get the Genesis Framework and all StudioPress-made child themes in two ways: by purchasing a Genesis Pro subscription ($360/year) or by hosting your site with WP Engine or Flywheel, where they are included for free.
  • Elementor Hello Theme: For creators who want 100% design control from the start and don’t need the specific Genesis backend, the free Hello theme from Elementor is the ultimate blank canvas, built to be the fastest and most lightweight foundation for the Elementor Theme Builder.

What Is the Genesis Framework?

Think of your website as a car. WordPress is the engine, the transmission, and all the core components that make it run. The Genesis Framework, in this analogy, is the car’s frame, chassis, and security system.

Developed by StudioPress (now owned by WP Engine), Genesis is a parent theme framework. It’s a layer of code that sits between WordPress and your actual theme. It provides:

  1. Airtight Security: Genesis has a reputation for being one of the most secure frameworks in the WordPress ecosystem, with clean, audited code.
  2. Peak Performance: The code is lightweight and optimized for speed, helping you achieve excellent Core Web Vitals.
  3. Future-Proof Code: When WordPress updates, the Genesis Framework is updated to match. Your customizations, which live in the child theme, remain untouched and safe.
  4. Powerful SEO: Genesis was built with SEO best practices from the ground up, including schema markup integration and a clean code structure that search engines love.

The Parent Theme vs. Child Theme Model

You never activate the Genesis Framework itself. Instead, it runs in the background. You activate a Genesis Child Theme.

  • Parent Theme (Genesis): Handles all the core functionality, security, and structure.
  • Child Theme (e.g., Authority Pro): Handles all the visuals—the layout, colors, fonts, and widget areas.

This separation is brilliant. It means you can update the Genesis Framework (the parent) to get the latest security patches and features without ever breaking your website’s design.

The Big Shift: Genesis, Gutenberg & Elementor

It’s important to understand that the Genesis ecosystem has evolved. A few years ago, Genesis themes were heavily reliant on “widgetized” homepages. You would build your homepage by dragging WordPress widgets into specific areas like “Home Top,” “Home Middle 1,” and “Home Middle 2.”

Today, that’s changed. Nearly all modern Genesis child themes are built for the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg).

They are designed to be “one-click setup” themes. You install the theme, click a button, and it imports all the demo content, plugins, and block-based page layouts for you. This is fantastic for speed, but it’s not an Elementor-first workflow.

So, where does that leave Elementor creators? It leaves us with the best possible option.

The Modern Elementor + Genesis Workflow

Why choose between Genesis’s foundation and Elementor’s design freedom? You don’t have to.

Here is the professional workflow I recommend:

  1. Install the Foundation: Get your Elementor Hosting (which runs on the Google Cloud Platform) or another high-performance host like WP Engine or Flywheel. Install the Genesis Framework.
  2. Install a “Blank Canvas” Child Theme: Install a lightweight, minimalist Genesis child theme. My go-to for this is Monochrome Pro. You aren’t choosing it for its design; you’re choosing it for its clean, white-label foundation.
  3. Take Over with Elementor Pro: This is the magic step. Go to Templates > Theme Builder in your Elementor Pro settings.
  4. Build Your Site Visually:
    • Header: Create a new Header template in Elementor. Design it exactly how you want, with your logo, navigation, and contact info. Set its display condition to “Entire Site.” This visually replaces the default Genesis header.
    • Footer: Do the same for your footer. Build it with Elementor’s widgets and set the display condition to “Entire Site.”
    • Blog Archive: Design a beautiful blog listing page. Use the “Posts” widget. Set the display condition to “All Archives.”
    • Single Post: Design your perfect blog post template, complete with a featured image, post title, post content, and author box. Set the display condition to “All Posts.”

With this method, you get the best of everything. Genesis handles the secure, SEO-friendly backend, while Elementor gives you 100% visual control over the entire front end. You never have to touch a line of code or a Genesis hook.

15 Best Genesis Themes for 2025

While I recommend the Theme Builder method above, you might want a theme that looks great right out of the box. Here are the 15 best Genesis child themes available, perfect as either a starting point for your block-based build or as a solid foundation for your Elementor override.

All StudioPress themes listed are free if you use WP Engine or Flywheel hosting, or are included with the $360/year Genesis Pro subscription.

StudioPress Themes (Included with Genesis Pro)

1. Authority Pro

  • Best For: Experts, coaches, authors, and personal brands.
  • Why It’s Great: Authority Pro is designed to do one thing: build trust. Its layout is structured to highlight your expertise, showcase testimonials, and build your email list. It’s the perfect theme for establishing yourself as an authority in your niche. The strong calls-to-action and clear user journey make it a conversion-focused powerhouse.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Homepage designed to build social proof.
    • Pre-styled for WooCommerce.
    • Mobile-responsive.

2. Monochrome Pro

  • Best For: Minimalists, agencies, and as a “blank canvas” for Elementor.
  • Why It’s Great: This is my personal favorite for using with the Elementor Theme Builder. Out of the box, Monochrome Pro is a masterclass in minimalist design. It uses bold typography and generous white space to create a powerful, elegant feel. As a foundation for Elementor, it’s ideal because it’s lightweight and its design is so simple that it won’t clash with your custom templates.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Incredibly lightweight and fast.
    • Minimalist design is easy to build on top of.
    • Pre-styled for WooCommerce.

3. Essence Pro

  • Best For: Lifestyle, wellness, and health blogs.
  • Why It’s Great: Essence Pro is a beautiful, airy theme with a focus on soft colors and elegant typography. It’s designed to feel calming and organized, making it perfect for the wellness and lifestyle space. Its layout is perfect for showcasing photography and long-form blog content in a way that is easy and enjoyable to read.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • One-click theme setup.
    • Attention-grabbing call-to-action widgets.
    • Accessibility-ready.

4. Magazine Pro

  • Best For: Online magazines, news sites, and content-heavy blogs.
  • Why It’s Great: As its name suggests, Magazine Pro is built to handle a large volume of content and present it in a clean, scannable, and professional layout. It makes your website look like a high-end online publication. It supports multiple content categories on the homepage, ad placements, and a versatile layout that puts your articles front and center.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Multiple homepage and category layout options.
    • Pre-styled for WooCommerce.
    • Configurable header.

5. Foodie Pro

  • Best For: Food bloggers, recipe sites, and culinary magazines.
  • Why It’s Great: Foodie Pro is one of the most popular food blog themes of all time, and for good reason. It’s designed specifically to showcase recipes, with a clean layout that makes your food photography pop. It includes a robust recipe index and is optimized for the block editor, allowing you to use modern recipe card blocks seamlessly.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Advanced recipe index.
    • Minimalist style that highlights photography.
    • Pre-styled for WooCommerce.

6. Navigation Pro

  • Best For: Travel blogs, podcasts, and lifestyle sites.
  • Why It’s Great: Navigation Pro is a bold, modern theme built with a focus on storytelling through images. It’s an excellent choice for creators who have a lot of high-quality photography, like travelers or artists. It also has built-in support for podcasting and is designed to guide visitors through your content in a compelling way.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • One-click setup for travel, food, and fitness sites.
    • Atomic Blocks and WPForms integration.
    • Accessibility-ready.

7. Breakthrough Pro

  • Best For: Marketing agencies, service providers, and creative studios.
  • Why It’s Great: Breakthrough Pro is a clean, professional theme designed to sell services. Its design is direct and conversion-focused, with a “services” portfolio section and clear calls-to-action. It’s a no-nonsense theme for businesses that want to look sharp, explain their value, and generate leads.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Portfolio and services section.
    • Bright, high-contrast design.
    • Pre-styled for WooCommerce.

8. Altitude Pro

  • Best For: Business, corporate, and agency websites.
  • Why It’s Great: Altitude Pro is a classic “one-page” style theme that uses parallax scrolling to create a dynamic, engaging user experience. As a user scrolls, the background images move at a different speed, creating an impressive sense of depth. It’s perfect for a corporate site that needs to tell a compelling brand story in a single, flowing page.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Parallax scrolling effects.
    • Strong, blocky, and professional design.
    • Widgetized homepage for easy customization.

9. Infinity Pro

  • Best For: Digital agencies, tech companies, and modern online businesses.
  • Why It’s Great: Infinity Pro is a sleek, flexible theme that balances professionalism with a modern creative touch. It’s built to be a strong digital presence for a business, with a team member section, lead-gen forms, and a clean portfolio. It’s also fully WooCommerce-ready, making it great for agencies that sell digital products.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Team, portfolio, and pricing page templates.
    • WooCommerce integration.
    • Mobile-responsive.

10. Daily Dish Pro

  • Best For: Food blogs, personal blogs, and simple magazines.
  • Why It’s Great: While Foodie Pro is built for recipes, Daily Dish is built for the story behind the food. It’s a content-first theme that prioritizes beautiful typography and white space, making your articles a pleasure to read. It’s a simple, elegant, and timeless theme for any kind of publisher.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Focus on readability and typography.
    • Four homepage widget areas.
    • Pre-styled for WooCommerce.

11. Sixteen Nine Pro

  • Best For: Personal bloggers and writers.
  • Why It’s Great: This is another classic theme that has been updated for the modern web. Sixteen Nine Pro features a unique two-column layout that puts your content on the left and a fixed sidebar (with your photo and bio) on the right. It’s the perfect “writer’s theme,” keeping the focus on you and your words.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Unique fixed-sidebar layout.
    • Mobile-responsive.
    • Extremely minimalist and fast.

12. Author Pro

  • Best For: Published authors, speakers, and writers.
  • Why It’s Great: Author Pro is purpose-built to help authors sell books. It has built-in functionality for creating a “library” of your books, complete with cover images, descriptions, and purchase links. It’s the ultimate digital platform for a professional author to manage their brand and catalog.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Custom “Book Library” functionality.
    • Pre-styled for WooCommerce.
    • Author and speaker-focused layout.

Top-Tier Third-Party Genesis Themes

These themes are not made by StudioPress and are not included with Genesis Pro. They are sold by independent, high-quality developers.

13. Jessica

  • Developer: 9seeds
  • Best For: eCommerce stores.
  • Price: $79 (One-time fee)
  • Why It’s Great: If you’re building a serious eCommerce store with Genesis, ‘Jessica’ is a fantastic choice. It’s one of the few third-party themes that was built specifically for deep WooCommerce integration. It features an advanced product search, customizable shop layouts, and a conversion-optimized checkout process. It’s a robust theme for a store that needs more than just basic styling.
  • Key Features:
    • Deep WooCommerce integration.
    • Advanced product filtering and search.
    • Fully widgetized homepage.
    • Mobile-responsive.

14. Mai Delight

  • Developer: BizBudding
  • Best For: Food, travel, and lifestyle bloggers.
  • Price: $99/year (Includes the entire Mai Theme collection)
  • Why It’s Great: The Mai theme collection is one of the most respected in the third-party Genesis world. Mai Delight is a fast, flexible, and image-rich theme perfect for bloggers. It’s highly optimized for performance and Core Web Vitals. The BizBudding team is known for clean code and excellent support, making this a professional-grade choice.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-first design.
    • Optimized for speed and Core Web Vitals.
    • Advanced, customizable recipe index.
    • Part of the Mai Theme bundle.

15. Mai Law

  • Developer: BizBudding
  • Best For: Law firms, consultants, and professional services.
  • Price: $99 (One-time fee, separate from the bundle)
  • Why It’s Great: Mai Law provides the immediate professionalism and trust signals that a law firm or high-end consultant needs. Its design is clean, corporate, and authoritative. It features built-in sections for practice areas, attorney profiles, and prominent calls-to-action. It’s a turnkey solution for a professional services website.
  • Key Features:
    • Gutenberg-optimized.
    • Built-in “Practice Areas” and “Team” sections.
    • Strong, trust-building design.
    • Mobile-responsive and accessibility-ready.

The Elementor Alternative: Ditch the Framework, Go Full Builder

While the Genesis + Elementor Pro method is powerful, I want to provide an expert alternative.

If your primary goal is 100% design freedom and the fastest possible workflow within Elementor, then the Genesis Framework adds a layer of complexity you may not need.

For the ultimate Elementor experience, the best “theme” is the one built by Elementor itself: the Hello theme.

  • What is Hello? It is a “blank canvas” theme. It’s completely free and contains almost no styling, scripts, or code. It exists only to be the perfect, feather-light foundation for the Elementor Theme Builder.
  • Why Use It? It is the fastest, most lightweight, and most compatible theme you can possibly use with Elementor. You don’t have to “override” any theme styles because there are none. You build your entire site—header, footer, pages, posts, archives—visually with Elementor Pro.
  • Who is it For? This is the path for the true Elementor creator. The designer, agency, or business owner who wants to build a completely custom website from the ground up without being limited by any pre-existing theme framework.

As a web creation expert, Itamar Haim notes, “The modern web creator needs to be strategic. Genesis provides a best-in-class, secure foundation. Elementor provides best-in-class design freedom. The professional workflow is knowing how to blend the two, or, when to use a pure Elementor stack like the Hello theme for maximum speed and creativity.”

Final Thoughts: Which Path Is for You?

Choosing your theme is the most critical first step. Here’s how to decide.

Path 1: The Genesis Purist

  • Who: You’re a blogger or small business owner.
  • What: You love the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg) and want a beautiful, secure site that just works.
  • Action: Host with WP Engine, get Genesis Pro for free, and install a theme like Essence Pro or Foodie Pro. Use the one-click setup and be online in an hour.

Path 2: The Hybrid Professional (Genesis + Elementor)

  • Who: You’re a developer or agency that values the rock-solid Genesis foundation but demands total design control.
  • What: You want Genesis for its security and SEO, but Elementor for its visual Theme Builder.
  • Action: Get Elementor Pro. Install the Genesis Framework and the Monochrome Pro child theme. Then, use the Elementor Theme Builder to create and assign your custom header, footer, post, and archive templates.

Path 3: The Elementor Creator

  • Who: You’re a designer, marketer, or agency who lives and breathes in Elementor.
  • What: You want the fastest, most flexible, and most lightweight foundation possible for building a 100% custom Elementor site.
  • Action: Get Elementor Pro. Install the free Hello theme. Build your entire site visually using the Theme Builder.

All three paths are valid. The best one depends on your goals, your technical comfort, and your desire for creative control.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Do I have to pay for the Genesis Framework? No. The Genesis Framework itself is now open-source and free. However, to get the premium StudioPress child themes (like Authority Pro, Magazine Pro, etc.), you need a Genesis Pro subscription ($360/year) or host with WP Engine or Flywheel, where they are all included for free.

2. Can I use Elementor (free version) with a Genesis theme? Yes. You can use the free version of Elementor to design the content of your pages and posts. However, you will not be able to visually edit your header, footer, or blog archive pages. Your Genesis child theme will still control those parts.

3. What is the Elementor Theme Builder and why do I need it for Genesis? The Elementor Theme Builder is a Pro feature that lets you replace your theme’s core parts. You can visually build your own header, footer, blog post template, and archive page, and then set “display conditions” to tell WordPress where to show them. This is the key to getting full design control over a Genesis theme.

4. Is the Hello theme better than Genesis for Elementor? “Better” is subjective. The Hello theme is faster and more optimized for an Elementor-only workflow. It’s a blank canvas. The Genesis Framework is a more robust foundation with a long history of security and SEO excellence, but it adds a layer of code that a pure Elementor build doesn’t have. If you are an Elementor purist, use Hello.

5. What happens if I use Elementor on a Genesis theme without the Theme Builder? Your site will work perfectly fine, but you will be limited. The Genesis child theme will control your site’s header, footer, blog layout, and sidebar. You will only be able to use Elementor to design the content inside the default page template (the area between the header and footer).

6. Do I still need a child theme if I use the Elementor Theme Builder? Yes. WordPress technically requires an active theme. You install the Genesis Framework and a lightweight child theme (like Monochrome Pro) to act as that “active” theme, even if you plan to visually override every part of it with Elementor Pro.

7. Is Genesis still relevant in 2025 with Elementor and Gutenberg? Yes, but its role has changed. Instead of being a visual framework, think of it as a foundational framework. Many top-tier agencies and developers still build on Genesis because they trust its code, security, and performance. They simply “decouple” the front-end design using tools like Elementor or a custom Gutenberg setup.

8. What is Genesis Pro? Is it worth $360/year? Genesis Pro is a subscription that gives you the Genesis Framework, all 35+ StudioPress-made child themes, and the “Genesis Custom Blocks” plugin. If you build many sites, want access to all the themes, or plan to build custom blocks, it’s a great value. If you just need one site, it’s more cost-effective to host with WP Engine or Flywheel.

9. Can I build an eCommerce store with Genesis and Elementor? Absolutely. This is a powerful combination. You install Genesis, a WooCommerce-ready child theme (like Authority Pro or Jessica), and the WooCommerce plugin. Then, you use Elementor’s WooCommerce Builder (a Pro feature) to visually design your shop page, product pages, and checkout process.

10. Where can I see all the Elementor templates I can use? Elementor has a huge Template Library with hundreds of pre-designed, professional templates, blocks, and full website kits. You can use these to dramatically speed up your workflow, whether you’re using the Hello theme or the Genesis + Elementor Pro method.