RocketTheme includes their arsenal of extensions in their templates, which are more or less hit or miss (but the ones that hit do pretty well). I usually end up spending a couple extra hours re-sizing images, making menu fonts smaller, etc. This is due to the fact that they always have the logo and menu in one row, while not accounting for different logo dimensions/sizes or a large amount of menu items. Another nuance with their templates is that every time I build a new site, their headers have responsive issues. Other templating frameworks have incorporated features that allow you to configure the layout as browser widths decline, however with Gantry you're stuck with what the default is, unless you want to do some additional coding. This is another area that RocketTheme has struggled with. It's not all bad though as noted above they do offer a good selection of pre-determined styles with different colors and background images, which is helpful for people with less coding know-how.
If you're looking to make a professional looking, clean website, look elsewhere. This is crucial because usually you will want to pick from the latest designs. Of course, design is all relative to each user's preference, but to me their designs over the last year or two have had more or less the same look and feel. Unfortunately, this is an area that RocketTheme performs poorly in.
The only complaint with their admin panel is the lack of additional responsive features (more on that below). I recommend using Gantry as a standalone template if you are willing to provide your own design. Additionally, their templates have a ton of different color and style options to choose from. Their layouts tab lets you set the number of columns for each individual row, with a total of up to 78 different positions. The Gantry framework ( or for the stand-alone framework) has been around for a long time, with a plethora of template options dating back to as early as 2005 (they release 1/month, so you do the math).īased on the 960 Grid system, it's most powerful feature is its template manager interface, and the features it provides. Here is a review of some of my favorite frameworks: Personally, I don't just use one framework I pick whichever one works best for the website I am building. There are different features, designs, and specializations that should be taken into consideration when choosing your template, and I recommend trying different frameworks before deciding what you like best. What if you choose one that doesn't suite your needs? Luckily, there are many good options out there, and its hard to say that there's a best one for every situation. With all the available options online, choosing the right Joomla template framework can be frustrating.