With over 610,000 licences sold on Themeforest, the Avada WordPress theme is one of the world's best-selling premium themes. But what can Avada theme do and what advantages and disadvantages does it have? You can find the answers in this article.

Some love them - others hate them: so-called "multipurpose themes" for WordPress, which provide many functions and design options out of the box. The WordPress theme Avada is one of them and has indeed a lot to offer. But what can the most successful WordPress theme and where are its strengths and weaknesses?

What's in the Avada theme?

Currently, you can purchase the Avada theme at Themeforest for $60 and receive an unlimited licence to use the theme for one domain. The licence also includes six months of support from the development team theme Fusion. A very comprehensive documentation of the theme can be found at https://theme-fusion.com/documentation/avada/.

Avada full package download

In your Themeforest account you can download the Avada Full Package under "Downloads" and save it on your computer. After unpacking the 265 MB ZIP file on your local computer, you will receive not only the actual Avada theme but also the corresponding child theme (more on this later).

In addition, there is a folder with all Photoshop files of the standard demo site. There is also a language folder with translated language files for many countries. These can be installed later via FTP in order to translate specific English terms.

In the Extras folder you will find documentation on the premium sliders "Layer Slider" and "Revolution Slider".

Installation of Avada

You can install the files Avada.zip and Avada Child.zip in the WordPress Dashboard under Themes and then activate the Avada Child theme.

Child theme Installation Advantages:

•      Own CSS modifications in the Child theme CSS file
•      All basic settings of the theme are saved in the child theme (theme updates + patches)
•      PHP code additions can be accommodated in the supplied functions.php file

After activating the Avada Child Theme, you still have to activate the additionally required plugins "Fusion Core" and "Fusion Builder" in the area of the supplied plugins. However, you will also receive a note about this.

In the area of Avada's own extensions, you can choose from further premium and free plugins for activation. These include the Slider Layer Slider and Revolution Slider, ACF PRO, Convert Plus and many more.

Licensing for updates and support

In order to receive updates and support for the Avada theme , you must activate the theme via a token key. You can obtain this token key via your Themeforest account. How this works exactly is also explained in the documentation in a short video.

The system requirements

Since the Avada themeoffers a lot of features and thus requires a lot of resources, you should go for fast WordPress hosting.

Under the tab "System Status" you can view information about your current WordPress and server environment. You should try to optimise the areas marked in red:

The minimum server requirements of the Avada theme:

• WordPress 4.6 or higher
• PHP 5.6 or higher
• MySQL 5.6 or higher

Recommended PHP limits and configuration

• max_execution_time 180
• memory_limit 128M
• post_max_size 32M
• upload_max_filesize 32M

If you don't know how to adjust the PHP limits, just google "WordPress max_execution_time". There are many instructions on the net.

At Raidboxes you can adjust the max_execution_time in your website settings with one click.

For more information on Avada's system requirements, see the Requirements For Avada section of the documentation.

Avada demos

Over 40 demos on various sectors and themes are available after installing the theme. The demo websites can be installed either completely or page by page. When importing the demos, it should be noted that the photos used are subject to copyright and should not be used for your own website or, to be more precise, exchanged!

Here you will find an overview of all Avada demos: https://avada.theme-fusion.com/demos/

The Avada theme Options: Basic settings and configuration

The Avada theme options are the heart of the theme. Here you can style and configure your entire website. The typography and colour scheme, the blog styling and much more - in the theme options you can make many detailed settings.

However, this also means that you should allow for a certain training period in order to understand and optimally use all settings. You can find an overview of the Avada theme options here.

Website layouts with fusion builder

Avada theme has its own page builder for designing pages and articles. The Fusion Builder offers you countless possibilities to design a website by drag and drop.

To list all the features here would certainly go beyond the scope of this blog post. But basically, column layouts are built with responsive containers and design elements are used in these containers (headlines, images, text blocks, sliders). At theme-fusion.com you will find a comprehensive overview of the functions provided by the Avada Fusion Builder.

Mobile first designs

A great feature can be found in the options for column containers. Here you can define whether a container should only be displayed for mobile views (mobile, tablet) or only for desktop screens. This saves a lot of time when it comes to mobile views.

Create, save and reuse templates

Complete page layouts, containers and individual elements can be saved in the Fusion Builder Library and inserted again at any point. This saves you a lot of time when it comes to recurring page structures or call-to-action elements, for example. With the additional function "Global save" you can save several instances of a built element globally. All changes that you make later are transferred to all instances at the same time.

Performance optimization of the Avada theme

The theme options also include a section for optimising the performance of your website. In this section you will find options for combining CSS and JavaScript files, lazy load for delayed loading of images or deactivating emoji scripts.

In addition to the performance options, however, you should consider installing professional caching plugin in WordPress if your host does not come with server-side caching. Since I use Avada theme myself, I have had excellent experiences with WP Rocket.

The advantages and disadvantages at a glance

The advantages:

• Unlimited design options for creating website layouts
• Own drag and drop page builder
• Many premium plugins included, such as "ACF Pro" and "Revolution Slider"
• Over 40 demo versions for immediate use
• 7 different header variants incl. Top Navigation and Sticky Header
• Save page layouts and elements in a library
• Create portfolio and FAQ sites
• Integrated cookie notice for privacy notices
• Optional deactivation of unneeded scripts
• Performance optimization options
• Integrated mega menu for complex page navigation
• Advanced settings of the navigation menus incl. mobile menu
• WooCommerce compatible plus additional options
• Advanced options for internal search
• Many own sidebar widgets
• Installing your own font files
• Extensive documentation
• Large community forum

The disadvantages:

• Long training period
• High minimum requirements for webhosting/server
• Additional caching plugin advisable for optimal performance
• Theme change is problematic because shortcodes remain
• Documentation only in English
• theme Updates require updates of the "Fusion Core" & "Fusion Builder" plugins
• Additional updates through fusion patches
• Translation of backend into European languages is partly incomplete
• Additional upload of the European language files is sometimes required
• Somewhat cumbersome licensing via token key
• No frontend editor (to be added in version 6)

Helpful Sources:

• Buy Avada theme via Themeforest
• Avada Documentation
• Avada theme Support
• Avada Community Forum
• Facebook group of Avada Users
• Development team theme Fusion

My conclusion on the Avada theme

To say it in advance: You will need some time to familiarise yourself with the Avada theme . The Multipurpose theme is so extensive in its possibilities that you will only get to know many things through trial and error.

As a web designer, I use theme for my own site as well as for numerous client projects. And it also took me some time to fully exploit all the possibilities of the Avada theme. But then the design possibilities are almost unlimited.

Avada is excellently suited to realising extensive websites, such as for associations, larger companies or online shops. For a simple blog site, theme is certainly too oversized; there are better solutions. If you miss a frontend editor like Elementor, you should wait until version 6.  

Do you have any further questions about using Avada, or would you like to share your experience with it? Then please leave me a comment!