WordPress Classic themes vs Block themes

In today's video, I am going to be discussing what WordPress classic themes and block themes are. I will discuss the four main differences between them and when best to use them.

[thomassaunders]

The real difference between classic and block themes lies within the PHP requests to your webhost. Block themes rely more on HTML which is rendered by your web browser thus any slowdowns are on the client side. PHP is processed on the server side. PHP is the only way to perform SQL commands which pull the stored data from the database. Classic themes store more of the page data in individual files in the database thus more server requests. The busier your website is and the more dynamic data (database requests) on your website the slower the site becomes. Sites that are heavy on dynamic data will not be significantly different on either classic or block themes. Blog posts are dynamic data on either type of theme. In conclusion, the big difference is the number of PHP requests to the server. Cheaper hosting limits significantly the PHP processing power as well as number of requests. Keep that in mind when picking your theme.

[RespinaCollege]

thanks guy actually you explain in a simple way.... it's very useful for any non-English person like me .

[MrBrady]

Thanks! I like working with code and prefer that method over the block editor and site builders. I think Wordpress needs to undersand that there are a lot of people like me. Not sure if they get that though.

[LouisDallara]

Thanks for explaining that, I have an old WP photography site in classic, I was looking at converting it to a block them, it looks like so much work. At least now I know more about the block themes.

[Rajesh-rgfw]

I wanted to create a plugin witch on activation will create a admin menu page, PluginSidebar and panelBody, then in the sidebar I will have a lot of different jsx components to render and also have api calls. Now to make some thing like this, how will I structure the code base, should I use @wordpress/create-block, or just @wordpress/scripts, or traditional php way. I new to WordPress and have no idea witch one to go for. Please guide.

[les-fauxmonnayeurs]

Does block theme offer flexibility in editing html, css or add javascript for example? (For the records, I came here from ChatGPT that is suggesting your video, good referral no?:))

[SpiderMarketingAI]

Hi Alexander, I like you videos and your courses. I have 2 quick questions:
- in terms of responsiveness, what kind of theme is easier to adapt to mobile?
- in terms of sustainable design, I''d like to make my websites as lightweight as possible. And then, what would be best: block themes or classic themes?
Thanks in advance 👍

[calicogal]

Good information as always Alex. One question. I was flirting with the idea of refreshing my WordPress skills. It has been a while since I've gone through one of your classes. Is there one you would recommend?

[DenisonCarlosMS]

The Final Considerations were "Surgical"!!! Working with Block Themes doesn't mean being "better" than anyone else. And the opposite is also true. It all depends on the project being developed and the requirements it requires. That simple! If you deliver the project with all the functional requirements, with speed and conversion, the client will care little about the type of technology behind everything.