The Genesis Framework and Local Pro Are Now Free for All
The Genesis Framework, Genesis sample theme, and Local Pro are now available to everyone, at no cost!
The best things in life are free, and now that includes your favorite developer tools!!
As of today, the Genesis Framework, the Genesis sample theme, and Local Pro are all available to everyone, free of charge!
The Genesis Framework and Genesis sample theme were previously free for WP Engine and Flywheel customers. The added features available with Local Pro have now been rolled into Local, which has always been free for everyone.
As the world’s most trusted WordPress technology company, WP Engine is focused on rolling out more value and improving tools for not only our customers, but the entire WordPress community.
We recognize that each one of these three developer tools has independently powered hundreds of thousands of WordPress projects, and opening them up to everyone at zero cost is something we’re incredibly excited about.
Read on for more information about each of these highly popular development solutions, as well as details on how to start using them all today!
The Genesis Framework
The Genesis Framework empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible websites with WordPress. Whether you’re a novice or advanced developer, the Genesis Framework provides the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go.
The Genesis sample theme (listed below) is one of the easiest ways to get started with the Genesis Framework, or you can choose from additional turnkey child theme designs to help you accomplish exactly what you want.
You can download the Genesis Framework here, and find documentation as well as a few helpful whitepapers below:
A Beginner’s Guide to the Genesis Framework
Getting Started with the Genesis Framework and WP Engine
Genesis sample theme
The Genesis sample theme is a child theme or layer of code that sits on top of the Genesis Framework. While it consists mainly of the design elements of your site, it can also extend and modify the functionality of the Genesis Framework’s default functions.
The framework + child theme structure of site building is great because it separates the performance issues of your site from design issues. If you use a child theme, you can design all day long without ever touching the critical, underlying code that makes Genesis sites so powerful.
The Genesis sample theme is an excellent child theme for starting any Genesis project. You can download it here, and find helpful resources including documentation below:
Local Pro
Local is a local WordPress development application beloved by nearly 300,000 developers around the globe. People love Local because it provides them with a safe place to experiment and develop new sites faster. It also lets developers focus on what’s important—building and launching WordPress sites—rather than spending all their time debugging local environments.
One of the most common benefits Local users cite is its intuitive and easy-to-use interface, which makes it possible to publish sites with just a few clicks, easily pull down live sites for offline edits, and sync various dev tools for an overall simplified workflow. While Local Pro provided access to a wider set of powerful pre-launch tools, those features are now available for free as part of Local 6.0, including:
- Live Links – Send a near-real-time preview link of sites to clients without deploying to staging or production
- MagicSync – Push website updates live with additional file-specific control that includes recommendations for updated, added, and deleted files
- Link Checker – Scan and find problem links on a website to avoid issues later
- Instant Reload – Save time by working with the site code and browser side-by-side to maintain flow-state and streamline previewing CSS changes
- Cloud Backups – Sync Local accounts to Google Drive or Dropbox to save ongoing work and add a site backup to Local whenever needed
You can download Local here and find documentation as well as some helpful guides below:
Bringing more tooling to the WordPress Community
Combining free access to the Genesis Framework and sample theme with all of the great tools and features now available with Local sets up a great stage for building better sites faster with WordPress.
Just as each of these three tools has individually inspired some of the best WordPress projects among WP Engine and Flywheel customers, our hope is that they continue to do the same across the larger WordPress ecosystem.
Fuel the freedom to create with WP Engine
WP Engine powers the freedom to create on WordPress. The company’s products, the fastest WordPress hosting solution among all WordPress providers, supports 1.5 million digital experiences. More of the top 200,000 sites in the world use WP Engine to drive their digital experiences than anyone else in WordPress. Visit wpengine.com to find out more or speak to a specialist now!
Start the conversation.