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Highend WordPress Theme Review

Updated on Feb 16, 2023 Posted by Editorial Staff Website Building, WordPress 21 Comments

Highend is one of the popular WordPress theme from HB-themes offered through Mojo marketplace. The theme cost $59 for a single site license having most of the needed features. We have been using this theme for more than five years in our site. Here, we wanted to share our experience for those who are looking for purchasing the theme. Therefore, this is a genuine review of highend WordPress theme based on real usage without any bias.

Highend Multipurpose WordPress Theme

Highend is a premium only multipurpose theme that you can use for building business, portfolio, online store and blog site. It offers custom designed elements along with WPBakery modules to create stunning websites. You will get theme options panel to customize header, footer, blog layout and other features of your site. After purchasing fro Mojo marketplace, download the content containing theme files. You do not need the purchase code as there is no need to activate the theme after installation.

Pricing – Is it Worth?

Highend is one of the top selling WordPress theme on Mojo marketplace with sales exceeding ~~14K~~ ~~22K~~ ~~39K~~ 45K mark. It will cost ~~$49~~ $59 and bundled with the following plugins. You need to install the plugins marked as required for the theme to work properly. Though other plugins are optional, you may also need them to have a similar site like their demo.

WPBakery Page Builder (required) – though they show as Visual Composer it is WPBakery Page Builder plugin and not Visual Composer.
Revolution Slider (optional)
Layer Slider WP (optional)
Essential Grid (optional)
Social Snap (optional) – this is a free version of the plugin.
WP Instagram Widget (optional)
WooCommerce (optional)
Contact Form 7 (optional)

From the cost perspective it is definitely worth of buying a theme along with all of these bundled plugins.

Installation Process

Once purchased, you can download the theme from Mojo marketplace along with demo and child theme files. Like any other third party themes, you can install the theme through WordPress admin dashboard or upload using FTP. Once installed you will be prompted to install the required plugins as listed above. It is highly recommended to install the plugins only if you need them. For example, both Slider Revolution and Layer Slider plugins offer similar functionalities. Hence install one of them to create featured header sliders for your site.

Demo Import

The demo files can either be imported through FTP or installed directly from the WordPress admin dashboard. The theme offers a system diagnostics feature to check whether your hosting can allow importing the theme or any modification is required on settings.

We noticed, the installation of theme works fine but the demo import always timeout with PHP max execution limit. Go to “Highend > Import Demos” menu and choose your demo to import on your site. In most cases, you only need the theme files to be installed on live site and demo data is not required since it will add hundreds of demo pages which you need to delete again.

There are handful of demos available and the developer did not release any new demo for the past many years indicating they are not focusing on this theme development at all.

Activating Highend Modules

The theme offers lots of in-built modules which you can view under “Highend > Highend Options > Highend Modules” menu. Enable the modules you need to use on your site from here. Unfortunately, disabling modules here neither will disable the CSS for that module nor will have any impact on using the corresponding shortcodes. What it does is to simply disable the menu item from admin panel sidebar. Each module is a custom post type which you can manage similar to posts and pages from the admin panel.

Customizing Layouts

The theme allows you to customize the layouts at site level from the options panel. You can setup blog, WooCommerce, sharing, logo and contact button as per your need. For individual page, you will see meta boxes in the post editor to adjust background and page layouts.

Ease of Use

Whether you are new to WordPress or already familiar with default WordPress editor, using highend theme needs some time to get acquainted with the plugins. Building page with WPBakery plugin needs you to understand “what is what” and the huge set of screen options may confuse you initially. You can create pages using the frontend or backend builder of WPBakery plugin. We noticed the WPBakery plugin is very slow on shared hosting environment causing delay in post editing. For creating posts, unfortunately the theme is not optimized for Gutenberg block editor and you need to either use old Classic Editor or copy paste the shortcodes from their documentation section. Though highend theme offers custom widgets, it does not offer any Gutenberg blocks. Therefore, if you love Gutenberg then highend is not the theme for you.

In short – it will not be as easy as using a simple WordPress theme or creating site with default editor. You need to invest effort and time to understand theme meta boxes, page builder elements and slider settings. Highend may be a good bet for new sites, however, it is up to you to evaluate spending money and investing time on this theme for migrating your existing site.

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Builtin and Bundled Features

There are as many as default features and options to customize your site. The advantage is the integrated online shop and membership features. Also there will be no need of additional shortcode plugins with the built-in shortcode generator.

Integrated WooCommerce support for creating online shop.
Theme is fully responsive and optimized for Retina display.
Theme supports different types of page layouts like scrolling presentation, seven default post formats like quote, video, audio, etc. and custom post types.
Builtin custom post types for pricing tables, FAQ, portfolio, gallery, testimonials, team members and clients allows you to create literally anything you want without the need of additional plugins.
Different types of header, footer and blog layouts make things more easy to build a wonderful site.
Drag and drop visual composer, slider revolution and essential grid plugins transform your site to next level.
Custom Google fonts, 50+ shortcodes, 20+ sidebar widgets, unlimited sidebars. mega menu, WPML and RTL supported.

The list will go long if we describe each feature, it is worth to look at their main demo site to see the features in action. Besides the main demo there are also demos available for restaurants, corporates, simple blogs, photography, etc.

Support

In case of any issue you need to create a thread in support forum to get your queries answered. There is a direct link from the dashboard allows you to navigate to HB-themes forum. We have raised more than 5 issues which indicated two things:

There are bugs on the theme and compatibility issues specific to individual sites. At the time of writing this review, there are more than ~~10K~~ ~~15K~~ ~~22K~~ 24K issues recorded on their support forum.
Earlier days, their support team responded well for theme specific queries. However, they have no answers for general queries like “why theme does not recognize recommended schema?”.

What we understand is the bugs are coming out of bundled plugin updates and compatibility issues with other plugins like WooCommerce. Since the theme is NOT updated frequently to align with PHP, core WordPress and bundled plugin’s update you should never update the theme directly on a live site. Trying out on local or staging site before updating live site is a mandatory requirement with highend theme.

Once the initial site is setup as per your need, there may not be much need for contacting support frequently as long as you don’t change the setup again. They also have plenty of documentation and video tutorials for learning and referring. Make sure to disable auto updating of theme in live environment to avoid issues with the updates.

Is it Suitable for Your Site?

After using more than five years, we do not recommend highend theme for the following reasons.

It is is one of the slowest themes we have used and heavily depends on jQuery. After installing the plugins and demo data the site we installed really looks heavyweight whereas it was a simple lightweight site with the previous theme. When we just checked the source code it was having >2.4k lines on the new site with highend theme which was more than three times compared with the same site using other theme. You will see different types of errors in Google PageSpeed Insights tool for unused CSS, unused JavaScript and render blocking resources.
Theme does not support Gutenberg blocks, not proactively updated for the compatibility with latest PHP and core WordPress updates. You can check their support forum was flooded with issues during each PHP and major WordPress update.
You need a solid hosting server with caching setup to support the theme to work properly.
Theme entirely depends on shortcodes for creating elements. Basically we do not like so much code on the source and we found each additional plugin is causing more load on the server by creating so many shortcodes. The huge dependencies on shortcodes will make the theme switch very difficult once you want to move out of highend theme.
In last seven years, we did not see the developer released any new demo or element or block while you can get free starter templates / blocks with many popular themes in the market.

We are using highend theme, since it offers integrated WooCommerce shop. We also need to move from shared hosting to Cloud VPS WordPress hosting and use premium WP Rocket caching to distribute the content fast. All these things we did more than seven years back when not many themes were available. However, nowadays you have plenty of alternative themes like Kadence, OceanWP, GeneratePress, Astra, Newspaper or Uncode. Especially if you are looking for fast loading website, we strongly recommend you to be away from highend theme. We are also planning to migrate from highend theme to a lighter theme as Google included page speed as one of the ranking factors.

Though we do not recommend the theme it has some advantages:

Cost effective combined with top-rated premium plugins like WPBakery, Slider Revolution, Essential Grid, etc.
Highly customizable with one click demo data and child theme.
Lifetime support and integrated with bbPress, WooCommerce and custom logo on login page.
Large number of built-in and WPBakery elements to build to build page layouts from scratch.

FAQ on Highend Theme

1. What is the pricing model?

$59 one time payment and get lifetime updates and support. There is no free version of the theme available.

2. Do i need any other plugin for this theme?

Yes, WP Bakery page builder is a mandatory plugin for using this theme. There are optional plugins like Revolution Slider, Essential Grid and WooCommerce.

3. How frequently developer updates the theme?

Unfortunately, the developer do not update the theme frequently. All the updates you can see in their change log were done for patching up the problems due to WordPress, plugins and PHP updates.

4. What about the theme’s speed?

We have tested with page speed tester tools with shared hosting to find the rank as low as 30-40 on both mobile and desktops with the demo content. The same site previously was previously ranked between 70-80 range on mobile and desktop.

5. What is the quality of the support?

We can rate their support as poor. Most of the support queries on their forum are for fixing theme panel and compatibility issues. You may have to wait for long time for any site specific queries. Some times you will not get any answer also.

Summary

If you are looking for creating a site as shown in the demo then it is highly recommended to have an appropriate hosting server to accommodate all those heavyweight plugins in addition to other plugins. If you run a simple blog or a business site then highend will be like fitting a huge wedge into a small hole. Not recommended due to slow speed, heavy CSS, jQuery based and poor support.

21 Comments

About Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WebNots are team members led by Nagasundaram. We love to build websites, find tech hacks and share the learning with community. Read more »

21 Comments

Leave your reply.

Patrick
· Reply

March 31, 2021 at 10:43 AM

Nowadays nobody likes slow themes like Highend. Good for showcasing portfolio and other custom post types. But not for regular bloggers.

Pros

One time payment and not a subscription like many other themes

Cons

Slow due to many JS files and large CSS
Elijah Hendon
· Reply

April 28, 2018 at 2:14 AM

I am also relatively new to Wordpress and have reviewed and used the tutorials on the Highend theme with limited success. My biggest issues is not necessarily how complex this theme is, but the lack of adequate documentation for such a complex theme. The high speed tutorials or not the right way to teach people how to use this theme. Are there any updated tutorials on this theme that do a better job? Maybe something that talks?
- WebNots Admin
  · Reply
  
  May 2, 2018 at 12:04 AM
  
  you can check their video tutorials page – https://hb-themes.com/documentation/highend/#video-tutorials.
Stefan
· Reply

April 12, 2018 at 7:46 AM

There is a learning curve, but I would not change this theme for any other.
KATHLEEN
· Reply

October 5, 2017 at 2:36 AM

I agree!! The sales techniques at the Mojo Marketplace entice you to purchase the entire package for $300 because you get Tech Support for 30 days. Hummm…. not really. You get a half hour twice a week for an appoitment or you can try and try and try to call as a “walk in.” I’m sorry, but I feel taken advantage of as someone who is not a coder and could never get really help. So, my “investment” sits as I try to find a web designer or move on.
Ensle Gaby
· Reply

August 1, 2017 at 3:27 PM

This is definitely a decent review explaining pros and cons. The only concern in using Highend theme is the changeability. Due to shortcodes and Visual Composer, it makes difficult to switch the theme. But yes, the same situation for similar themes.
Josh
· Reply

May 4, 2017 at 5:43 AM

If you haven’t seen yet, they now offer live chat support. I got several answers from Branko within minutes.
Daniel Widdison
· Reply

January 15, 2017 at 12:45 AM

I too expected it to just work & allow me to enjoy making my site. After 40 hours of use i still couldnt get the site to look the way i wanted it to. The logo is a choice of 2 sizes & cant be moved. Your header text is also a tiny size and cant be changed. The frontend editor wouldnt load many a time forcing me to use the backend editor instead. Due to time and stress issues I gave up & hired a web designer. Very frustrating experience & misleading sales pitch
- Editorial Staff
  · Reply
  
  Author
  
  February 21, 2017 at 11:41 AM
  
  This is the case with most of the popular themes bundled with plugins. Visual Composer always have problem in working with front-end editor, that is not related to the theme (now VC doesn’t even offer templates when bundled with themes). All other options like fonts, logo and colors should be customized under theme options.
  
  Believe us, 40 hours is really not sufficient to make the site looking like demo which is true for any commercial themes at this grade. For example, when you buy themes from Themeforest, no single image shown in the demo can be imported through demo content and you need to start with a skeleton. You have done it correctly to hire someone when you don’t have time.
  
  In our opinion – It’s not misleading but a fact difficult for end users to accept. Theme sales and demo setup are two different things sold separately in any marketplace. This can be clearly seen in Mojo marketplace when you purchase the theme.
Trish
· Reply

October 20, 2016 at 1:48 AM

I bought this product because it said it was user-friendly, 1 click demonstration, drag and drop etc.

I quote from the site “No Coding. Simply drag and drop.” and “import a demo template in just one click and start customizing with drag and drop editor.”
Upon calling your tech line I was informed none of that is true unless you pay an install fee of $149. This is a completely fraudulent explanation of services and of the product.

Then they refused to give my money back.

The demo is very pretty to look at but if you are not experienced at web design this is a complete ripoff. Other sites like wix.com are so much easier and faster to use. DO NOT waste your time and money being frustrated with this product when there are so much better sites out there.
- WebNots Admin
  · Reply
  
  October 23, 2016 at 10:08 PM
  
  The conclusion in the above review is pretty clear that you may need to hire the developers for more customizations. But importing demo and building with Visual Composer should not be a problem.
  
  The issue is your expectation of comparing Wix with a WordPress theme. You need to understand the difference between Wix, Weebly or any other free hosting services and self-hosted WordPress site. WordPress has very long learning curve (regardless of the theme) but it is worth to patiently learn in order to have a freedom of having a proper site. Otherwise you can always go with free site builders without even having facility to backup your own content. This point of view is no way related to a theme.
DN
· Reply

August 28, 2016 at 11:36 PM

Highend was one of my first creations with WordPress. It looked like the best theme Mojo had to offer. The developer had 22 sales at that time and support was direct from him and he pulled me out of several jams since I was new to WP. I wrote a long 5 star review of which no one does on Mojo. A couple months later he had close to 2,000 sales. Once his numbers grew, he started hiring support help and as Anna stated the new support staff auto directed you to tutorials and on a few occasions did not even read the ticket correctly. Since I had developed a relationship with the developer, I was free to email him directly for support and he always takes care of the problem. In my opinion his theme still tops most I have used and I have around 6 licenses with highend. Being new to WordPress I preferred video tutorials that talked you through the instruction and not a high speed visual. There are some sleeper themes on Mojo from themeofwp such as Cosmos that does not get much attention and the support is excellent. As far as speed from highend, I have good speed on each site I have used and the mobile menu is excellent. In close, I would recommend highend from my experience with other theme developers. The present support situation does need a fix, but bugging them will get results.
- WebNots Staff
  · Reply
  
  August 28, 2016 at 11:57 PM
  
  This is a standard problem with all startups. Once the company grows the knowledge of the support staffs is not same as the original developers. Now that they have even raised the price from $49 to $59 with lower level of support.
  
  But the point is, it is unavoidable and the same case with many other popular WordPress themes / plugins. Overall it is good theme – achieving 17K sales on mojo marketplace is an indicating of that.
Sally
· Reply

July 23, 2016 at 6:18 AM

I started using this theme almost a year ago and have had AWESOME support for ANY issue that I have had( which mostly had to do with me adding additional plugins that interfered with the ones in the theme). A year into the theme I have looked to see if there are other themes out there that can replace what this one does(recently exploring the well known Genesis “Foodie” theme)…..and it cannot touch the “HIghend” themes ability. I am not a web developer, and have only been building websites and working with the web 1 year, and These people have been awesome!! You just simply have to open up a ticket and explore keywords by yourself to find answers……I have almost always found my answers SUPER Quick by reading the threads. THIS THEME ROCKS!!
- Jerri Lyne
  · Reply
  
  May 17, 2017 at 5:38 AM
  
  Sally or anyone out there. I am new to Highend and the Visual Composer. I understand how to build in layers due to years in video editing using layers. However, There is a huge block of 12 inches of white space between the top header image and the body of my home page (demo site) and I cannot figure this out. I’ve looked under every stone. Would you or someone please help me? Here is the page. I thank you so much in advance! Jerri
  - Editorial Staff
    · Reply
    
    Author
    
    May 17, 2017 at 4:12 PM
    
    Your site looks good without any white space as you mentioned. Probably you need to clear the browser cache and check.
    - Jerri Lyne
      · Reply
      
      May 18, 2017 at 1:49 AM
      
      I had a static header image and the page was set for a slider. Once I clicked the slider and removed the image, the white space was removed. It only took me 4 hours and a lot of nervous energy, but hey, I’m a beginner at the new parallax software. Thank you very much for looking into this for me. :)
      
      I am just building this page for a client on my own website. Can I copy and paste the
      Visual Composer code from this test page to a new site using the same theme? I don’t want to rebuild the sequencing over again. Thank you again for your input.
      
      Best wishes,
      Jerri
      - Editorial Staff
        
        Author
        
        May 18, 2017 at 10:55 AM
        
        Yes, you can copy the code from text editor and use on other site by replacing the links/images.
Anna
· Reply

June 6, 2016 at 11:52 PM

While the theme demo’s are nice, there a slew of issues with the theme itself, primarily it’s lack of actual documentation. When you put in a support ticket, the staff directs you to a tutorial that is often not complete and assumes that a user has a fair amount of knowledge about WordPress
Furthermore, all of the “free” add ons are extremely limited in nature and most require you to purchase and upgrade to get full utilization and or support.

If you look at their help forum there are well over 12,000 help requests, the vast majority of those requests are the same ones over and over. The company should recognize this and set up better help and tutorials.

I would not suggest anyone who is not familiar with setting up a new WP site from scratch to purchase this theme.
- WebNots Staff
  · Reply
  
  June 7, 2016 at 12:17 AM
  
  Definitely it is not for beginners who want to customise things on their own. Either you can hire them to make your site as shown in demo or you need to play around to customize. Also most of the themes offering bundled plugins have the same issue that they don’t allow direct access to the plugin developers.
  
  Overall Highend is a good theme with decent support if you have the need of running a complex WordPress site. It is also the top selling theme on Mojo Marketplace.
- DN
  · Reply
  
  February 23, 2017 at 12:31 AM
  
  Yes and sometimes they do not even read the support request correctly. In the early stages, Branko fixed the issues and did not direct you to a documentation.

Highend WordPress Theme Review