The Frugal Theme Framework

I have been looking at the Frugal Theme from time to time to keep up with it’s development as it seems to be to be quite an awesome WordPress Theme framework. The Frugal Theme, developed by Eric Hamm, started off as a basic free Theme but improved over time until now where it has become a full fledged permium Theme. By the looks of it, the Frugal Theme has the brightest potential to give the Thesis Theme a run for it’s money.

I have not bought or used the Theme and what I write here is based on information gathered from the Frugal Theme site, blogs and forums discussing about the Theme. It looks promising and you can see the potential in the video below. For those who have used the Thesis Theme, they will notice the close resemblance with both these framework. Customization wise, the Frugal Theme seems to have taken a lead. My bet is the next Thesis upgrade will see Chris Pearson trying to outdo this Theme in order to stay as the market leader.

It is almost a pity that the Frugal Theme has not taken off like the Thesis as it deserves. Though the theme has garnered a substantial number of users, it definitely could have done better. My opinion is it is due to poor marketing. If Eric Hamm had teamed up with a marketer with the skills of Brian Clark, the Fugal Theme would have taken off in a big way.

As it is, the landing page for those who wants to check out the Theme really sucks. Even the video link that is suppose to tell people what the Theme is capable of is screwed. Instead of a in-depth show off of the Theme’s capability, what is presented is a musical video with no narration and a rush through of the customization options available. The video I embeded here, though not any better, at least have some brief introduction of what the Theme can do. Eric Hamm seemed reluctant to reveal everything about the Theme and I wonder why. I think he will have to take a serious look at how Brian Clark markets the Thesis Theme and how they present their landing page to potential customers.

Anyway, for those who simply hates the Thesis Theme for some reason or another or those who just do not want to see the Thesis developers get any richer, the Frugal Theme is for you. It has the same price structure and the customization level surpasses even the Thesis 1.6 though I doubt it can stay that way for long.

By the way, affiliates gets better commissions too. The Frugal Theme pays 40% as compared to the Thesis Them which pays a little bit more than 30%. Since I am not using it, I cannot and will not be promoting the Theme here as vigorously as I am doing for the Thesis Theme. Maybe in the future when I start a new blog, I might just buy the Theme and have a go at it, but until that time, I won’t be writing or recommending about something that I have not used personally.

Updated: The Frugal Theme has been replaced by The Catalyst Theme