Headway Themes vs. Socrates Themes

15 replies
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Hi everyone.

I'm trying to decide whether to purchase a license to Headway Themes or Socrates Themes? They both seem to be very good, however, Socrates is much less expensive. That being said, Headway seems to allow you design everything you want in a website. They both work on the WP platform. Does anyone have any information or opinion as to which one I should invest with?
Thanks,
Mario
#headway #socrates #themes
  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    I've been using Socrates since it was first released on a few of my sites.

    While it is easy to use and quite flexible, it's not the nicest looking design out there.

    I personally think the ThemeForest themes are some of the best looking and most flexible.
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    • Profile picture of the author MMateo23
      Thanks, I'll look into Theme Forest. I guess there are more options out there and I have to do some research. I was kind of hoping for a little more help from the forum. I figured several people would have used these themes and known about them. Take care.
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      • Profile picture of the author linkman11
        I'll agree with Peter and say that I love ThemeForest myself. There are some great themes there, I've probably bought 20.

        However, I created Socrates for Newbies who wanted to get a niche wordpress site up fast, that was simple to monetize. Fancy themes can be difficult to setup, require custom images and lot of time. They can even frustrate me and I've been building websites for 17 years.

        Socrates is fast.. 5-10 minutes and you're done. It's the primary reason Socrates is now used on over 100,000 websites. (that and our support).

        Honestly your visitors don't care about the design as much as you do.

        They are looking for information fast. They want to hit a site, and know they are in the right place. A custom niche header and site title will handle that part.

        Then they want to their information delivered in the most efficient way possible. And that's a blog format they are familiar with.. Like a right hand sidebar, easy navigation and black text on white background wrapped in a container.

        It's the reason all news sites are built that way...

        The biggest mistake that new site owners make is they spend way too much time trying to make a site pretty. If they put all that energy to creating valuable original search engine related content, they'd be way ahead of the game.
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  • Profile picture of the author magiclouie
    I both love themeforest themes (especially the u-design, U-Design WordPress Theme Preview - ThemeForest) and the headway theme. It depends really on what types of websites you are going to create. I used themeforest themes for portfolio sites, official websites, company websites, etc.

    What I like about headway is that, you control almost everything. It's just so flexible. Then headway themes do have childthemes now.

    I have started using headway since version v2.0.9 until now.

    But of course, you should be prepared for the learning curve.

    Cheers,
    Louie Tugas
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  • Profile picture of the author warrock
    You must check out Catalyst Theme. For the money and the features/options it offers its the best. I have many themes like Thesis, Profits Theme, Review Theme, Headway, etc. but I still use Catalyst the most. Do check it out before you make a decision.

    I'd stay away from Headway... too buggy and slow. I've not used Socrates so cannot comment on it.

    Catalyst | Premium WordPress Themes
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  • Profile picture of the author SergioFelix
    It depends on what you actually are planning to do...

    Socrates was designed for sites monetized with AdSense and ClickBank and offer a wide array of headers (200+) to put up quick sites.

    And Headway is a wordpress developing platform.

    Meaning you can practically create your theme from scratch using visual guides. It has a learning curve but if you watch the basic videos you can be creating sites pretty fast.

    Conclusion:

    Every single theme and wordpress development platform has its pros and cons, there's no such thing as THE perfect theme so this question would be easier to answer if we knew what you actually are planning to do with it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Shemp Hain
      Headway is LOADED with bugs. It's awesome when it works but they keep adding to it without fixing the problems. They do have a forum but the support is terrible. Another thing to keep in mind when using Headway... several plug-ins aren't compatible with the theme.

      Shemp
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  • Profile picture of the author rain21
    theme forest might be the best option for you, I think u may check that first
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    • Profile picture of the author HowToMakeAWebsite
      Oh man use headway hands down! It is an awesome theme and well worth it's money. I build almost everything with headway now. I love it!

      It is not that hard to learn and I can launch a website is like an hour! That is my 2 cents anyways.
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      • Profile picture of the author linkman11
        It is not that hard to learn and I can launch a website is like an hour!
        I know I'm biased because I created Socrates, but it only takes 5 minutes to setup Socrates with a custom niche header and you're done.. That's what it's designed for.. fast setup for newbies
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  • Profile picture of the author jaasmit
    What type of site do you want to run or what type of content will you provide along with how you want to represent it in the web.
    It totally depends on you.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    If you know what you are doing, you can tweak Socrates to make it look how you want it to. I've only had occasion to use and examine the trial version, but it looks like it's coded by someone who knows what they are doing (which is saying a lot when it comes to WP themes...). It can be easily modified by developing a child theme for it.

    I'm afraid I don't have the same kind words for Headway, and I'll just leave it at that...
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    Unless you want something REALLY fancy (which you don't really need for niche sites) then go for Socrates. It's amazingly quick to get a reasonable looking site up and running so you can focus on the content - not the platform. I use it for the majority of my niche sites and only use something else if I want to get fussy with my design.

    -John.
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  • Profile picture of the author jakebvs85
    Originally Posted by MMateo23 View Post

    Hi everyone.

    I'm trying to decide whether to purchase a license to Headway Themes or Socrates Themes? They both seem to be very good, however, Socrates is much less expensive. That being said, Headway seems to allow you design everything you want in a website. They both work on the WP platform. Does anyone have any information or opinion as to which one I should invest with?
    Thanks,
    Mario
    I have done a few tries with headway, the only problem is every move requires payment. I think you'd not need all the tools really. I suggest to go for the cheaper one if all you need is there.
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  • Profile picture of the author mmrumii
    The Socrates theme is the another best premium theme for wordpress.
    it's useful for seo. I like this theme personally.
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