Monstroid: The Next Generation WordPress Theme

(A product review for our friends at TemplateMonster)

In the peak of their popularity for all-in-one themes, the guys from TemplateMonster have launched their most ambitious project yet –
Monstroid.

What exactly is Monstroid and why is it the only theme you need for WordPress sites? It’s like a Swiss army knife of WordPress Themes, for starting any WordPress-based website. It’s the result of thirteen years leading the world of website templates, so we decided to take a closer look.

Easy Installation

Keeping in line with WordPress’ easy-install ethos, its installation is simple and smooth. Monstroid comes with a special installation plugin. In minutes you can not only install the theme itself, but also all necessary WordPress plugins and sample data. In addition, switching between skins (child themes in WordPress lingo), is made simple with the Monstroid Wizard plugin.

Lots of ready-to-use designs

Monstroid is not just for professional webmasters with established skills in web development, but also bloggers, online sellers and small business owners. Its user-friendly configuration options make it easy to build your WordPress site regardless of technical background. People will love the pack of pre-built responsive (mobile friendly), skins, making it easy to find a look and feel that suits your needs.

Upon launch Monstroid comes with four skins, but every month they’ll release no less than 15 new ones to choose from. This means site designers will have dozens of designs, all for the price of just one ($79).

The four readymade styles included in the release version of Monstroid are dark, light, minimal and oblique. You can switch between them in just one click with the built-in skin switcher.

Edit your pages with MotoPress content editor

Monstroid comes with MotoPress – a premium drag-and-drop page builder plugin. This allows you to easily customize and adjust the layout of your posts and pages. MotoPress saves you from the inconvenience of short codes when building pages, allowing fine tuning within its visual interface.

Diversify your design with Monstroid

The vast choice of plugins and settings provide a lot of ways of making your website’s look and functionality unique. From skins, to user-friendly drag-and-drop layout editors, you’ll never come across two identical Monstroid websites.

Cherry Custom Sidebars

This allows customization of the design and usability of your sidebars. You may include widgets, shortcodes and social media tools making your website’s interface unique and memorable.

Cherry Grid

Change the basic grid type for different headers, footers and main content blocks of your website – wide or boxed. Each element is independent and can be changed separately from the rest of the layout.

Static Area Builder

The Static Area Builder allows you to customize header and footer sections. These consist of multiple building blocks called ‘statics’ which you can drag and drop into different areas. The statics are based on Twitter’s Bootstrap allowing you to adjust their position and control their display by assigning Bootstrap grid classes.

Two Sliders

For those wanting spectacular animated images, there are two options for creating immersive slides. You may use the Simple Slider, inherited from the Cherry Framework. Or you can use the more advanced Premium version of the MotoPress Slider, which is available with Monstroid for free.

Independent module structure of plugins

Monstroid comes with twenty-three plugins by default. Some are utility extensions, while others affect the immediate design. Most notably include Cherry Team, Cherry Services, Cherry Portfolio, Cherry Testimonials, and Cherry Charts. Enliven your blog posts and static pages with interactive elements! As with all WordPress plugins, unused ones can be deactivated.

Compatibility with major WordPress plugins

Monstroid is fully compatible with the popular third-party plugins, including BBpress, BuddyPress, Yoast and WooCommerce. The page layouts of the theme are ready for implementing all their functions. Just install and go!

Full WooCommerce Integration

If you are a fan of the WooCommerce plugin, Monstroid won’t disappoint. All four basic skins have native support for WooCommerce, with one of them built specifically for it. There are also two additions which allow you to further expand Monstroid’s eCommerce capabilities.

WooCommerce YITH Compare & Wishlist

These plugins allow you to compare two or more products from your list. Your customers can also share wishlisted items on their social media accounts, and tracking information. Track their preferences, increase sales.

Additional features and plugins

Flexible Shortcode Options

Monstroid is packed with more than 30+ shortcodes. Want more? Just add the Shortcode Template Editor.

With it you can change the display order of complex shortcode elements (e.g. the title and featured icon in the “recent posts” shortcode) or you can completely remove them. Your unique shortcode templates allow you to display your content exactly as you want.

Social Integration

Social integration means more than social sharing buttons. It’s a full set of tools – from Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest buttons to social widgets.

WPML & RTL ready

Need a multilingual or right-to-left language website? Monstroid supports the WPML and RTL functions out-of-the box.

Google and mobile-friendly

“Google-friendliness” is a requirement for all websites. The challenge in building a multifunctional site is designs can become heavy and slow. Response time is an important factor in ranking in Google’s search results, as well as keeping mobile users engaged. Monstroid is optimized and fast, even at maximum load with all plugins activated.

Settings backup

In the day-to-day of managing complex themes it’s difficult to track changes. Monstroid comes with a Settings Backup feature allowing you to save your changes at any time, with roll them back if you like.

CSS Minifier

Speed and loading time can be further improved by the consolidating and minifying CSS files. Rather than requiring your visitors to download each CSS stylesheet separately, they can quickly be merged into a single minified CSS file.

120+ PSD files and 50+ stock images

The pre-built skins include dozens of layouts for different types of pages. To simplify their editing Monstroid includes over 120+ of PSD source files. With fifteen new skins every month, this will grow dramatically over time. It also comes with 50+ free high quality stock images.

24/7 Support right from the dashboard

TemplateMonster’s already has world-class 24/7 technical support. Monstroid comes with live chat available directly from the WordPress dashboard. There’s no need to create tickets or send emails. A Monstroid expert is available in seconds.

Get Monstroid today!

Monstroid is among the most diverse, scalable, and extensible WordPress themes. It can be used for blogs, portfolios, online stores or any other type of website you can think of. Get it today.