Blocksy is the better theme for most people in 2026, and Kadence is the better ecosystem. Blocksy is rated 100 out of 100 on WordPress.org from 872 ratings against Kadence's 98 from 455, it ships updates far more often, and its Agency licence covers unlimited sites for $149 a year. Kadence wins if you want Kadence Blocks plus Give, The Events Calendar and LearnDash on one bill, and you are fine paying $350 a year for a single site.
This site runs on Blocksy, with Kadence Blocks doing the page layouts, so I live with both every day. Everything below is checkable: pricing straight off both companies' pages, install counts and star distributions from the WordPress.org API, and release dates out of the WordPress theme repository, all read on 22 September 2026. I rechecked Kadence's pricing on 23 October 2026, because it changed in between.
Kadence vs Blocksy at a Glance
| Kadence | Blocksy | |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress.org rating | 98 out of 100 (455 ratings) | 100 out of 100 (872 ratings) |
| Active installs | 500,000 | 300,000 |
| Five star share | 95% (432 of 455) | 99% (862 of 872) |
| One star share | 2.0% (9 ratings) | 0.5% (4 ratings) |
| Current version | 1.5.2 | 2.1.57 |
| Last updated | 24 July 2026 | 11 September 2026 |
| Releases on WordPress.org | 129 | 445 |
| First release | August 2020 | February 2019 |
| Cheapest paid tier | $350 a year (1 site) | $69 a year |
| Unlimited sites | No, the top plan is 100 sites at $999 a year | $149 a year, or $499 once |
| Lifetime option | No | Yes, $199 to $499 |
| Owned by | Nexcess, part of Liquid Web | Creative Themes, independent |
| Best for | One bundle: Kadence, Give, The Events Calendar and LearnDash | A fast, deeply customisable theme at a lower price |
Did Kadence Copy Blocksy? The Release Timeline
This comes up constantly, there is a whole article ranking for it, and an older version of this page repeated the accusation. So I went to the evidence and pulled the release history straight out of the WordPress theme repository, where every published version of every theme is date stamped and public.
| Product | First published version | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Kadence Blocks, the plugin | On WordPress.org since | August 2018 |
| Blocksy, the theme | 1.0.4 | 21 February 2019 |
| Kadence, the theme | 0.8.4 | 19 August 2020 |
The answer has two halves. Blocksy's theme was on WordPress.org roughly eighteen months before Kadence's theme was. If you are comparing themes only, Blocksy got there first, and nobody can argue with a date stamp.
But Kadence WP was not a newcomer in 2020. Kadence Blocks had been on WordPress.org since August 2018, before Blocksy's theme existed, and the Kadence theme was built to pair with a block plugin the same company had already been shipping for two years.
What I Think Happened
Both themes solved the same problem at roughly the same moment in WordPress history. Gutenberg shipped in December 2018, every serious theme shop needed a header and footer builder and a block friendly layout system, and the good solutions converged because the problem constrained them. That is why they feel similar.
Convergent design is not theft, and treating it as a scandal makes for a fun headline and a useless buying decision. Pick on what each one does today.
The Free Versions, Where Most People Will Stay
Both free themes are good enough to finish a real site on, which most free WordPress themes are not. Both give you a header and footer builder, global colour and typography controls, and proper block editor support.
The ratings gap is small in absolute terms and interesting in its shape. Blocksy holds a perfect 100 out of 100 across 872 ratings. Kadence holds 98 across 455. Blocksy has nearly double the ratings on roughly half the installs, which means a noticeably larger share of its users felt strongly enough to go and rate it.
| Kadence | Blocksy | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 98 / 100 | 100 / 100 |
| Number of ratings | 455 | 872 |
| Five star | 432 | 862 |
| Two star and below | 12 | 6 |
| Active installs | 500,000 | 300,000 |
| Total downloads | 5.99 million | 7.82 million |
| Minimum WordPress | 6.3 | 6.7 |
| Minimum PHP | 7.4 | 7.0 |
One practical note buried in that table: Blocksy requires WordPress 6.7 or newer, Kadence only needs 6.3. If you are working on a site somebody has left un-updated for two years, Kadence will install and Blocksy may not until you update WordPress first.
Release Pace Is the Most Underrated Number Here
Blocksy has published 445 releases to Kadence's 129. At the time of writing Blocksy is on 2.1.57 and last shipped on 11 September 2026. Kadence is on 1.5.2 and last shipped on 24 July 2026, a gap of nearly two months.
That is not a crisis. Kadence is stable, actively supported, and a slower cadence on a mature theme can simply mean fewer things need fixing. But it is a real difference in how the two teams work, and it has a practical consequence: when WordPress ships a change that breaks something, Blocksy has historically responded in days.
It is also worth knowing who you are buying from now. Kadence was acquired. kadencewp.com redirects to Liquid Web, and the theme lists Nexcess as its author on WordPress.org. Blocksy is still Creative Themes, independent. Acquisitions cut both ways: more resources behind the product, and a roadmap that now answers to a hosting company.
Pricing, Where the Two Split
Blocksy Pro
| Plan | Yearly | Lifetime | Sites | Starter sites, Shop and Post Types | White label |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $69 | $199 | 1 | No | No |
| Business | $99 | $299 | 10 | Yes | No |
| Agency | $149 | $499 | Unlimited | Yes | Yes |
Read the last three columns carefully, because the entry plan is thinner than the price suggests. Personal at $69 excludes the pro starter sites, the Shop extension, the Post Types extension and white labelling. The plan most people want is Business at $99, which covers 10 sites and unlocks everything except white label.
Kadence
| Sites | Yearly | Per site |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $350 | $350 |
| 10 | $599 | $59.90 |
| 25 | $799 | $31.96 |
| 50 | $899 | $17.98 |
| 100 | $999 | $9.99 |
The Comparison That Should Decide It for Freelancers
Blocksy Agency is $499 once, for unlimited sites, with white labelling included. Kadence's 10 site plan is $599 every year, and its biggest plan stops at 100 sites for $999 a year.
If you build client sites, that is not a close call on cost. Buy Blocksy Agency once and you have paid for it forever. Buy Kadence for ten sites and you pay $599 again next year, and the year after. By the end of year one you have already spent $100 more than the Blocksy licence that never renews.
Kadence does give you more product for that money: every plan carries Give, The Events Calendar and LearnDash alongside Kadence itself. If you are buying it for one specific Kadence feature, check the bundle page first, because the old tier lists no longer apply. The question is whether you want all of that from your theme vendor.
| What you need | Blocksy | Kadence | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| One site, free only | $0 | $0 | Tie |
| One site, premium features | $69 Personal, limited | $350 bundle | Blocksy |
| One site, everything unlocked | $99 Business | $350 bundle | Blocksy |
| Ten client sites | $99 Business | $599 bundle | Blocksy |
| Unlimited sites with white label | $149 a year or $499 once | No unlimited plan, 100 sites is $999 a year | Blocksy |
| WooCommerce store with checkout tools | $99 Business plus your own stack | $350 bundle, check the bundle page for store features | Blocksy, unless your own stack costs more than $251 a year |
| Memberships and content restriction | Separate plugin | $350 bundle, check the bundle page for membership tools | Depends on the plugin you pick |
What They Are Like to Use
Strip out price and ratings and the day to day difference is narrower than either side's fans will tell you. Both are fast, both use the Customizer rather than a bespoke dashboard, both have header and footer builders with conditional display, and both output clean markup.
Where Blocksy Is Better
- The Customizer is faster and better organised. This is the single most common thing people who have used both say, and it holds up. Fewer clicks to reach a setting, and it responds quicker.
- Conditional logic is deeper. Header, footer and layout conditions can be targeted more precisely without writing code.
- WooCommerce integration is more thorough in the theme itself, including the product gallery, quick view and floating cart, rather than through a separate add on.
- It ships far more often, so fixes and new WordPress compatibility land sooner.
- A lifetime licence exists, which Kadence does not offer at all.
Where Kadence Is Better
- Kadence Blocks is the strongest part of the whole package, and it comes with every Kadence plan, while the free version stays on WordPress.org. 600,000 installs and 96 out of 100 on WordPress.org in its own right.
- One bundle for a big chunk of the stack. Theme, blocks, Give, The Events Calendar and LearnDash on one licence. For a small studio that is a real reduction in moving parts.
- 200+ starter templates, a deeper library than Blocksy's, and it shows most when you need a client site live by Friday.
- 500,000 installs against 300,000, so more tutorials, more Stack Overflow answers, more people who already know it.
- Lower WordPress requirement, 6.3 against 6.7, which matters on neglected sites.
- Corporate backing. Nexcess and Liquid Web are not going anywhere, which is worth something on a ten year project.
On Speed, Do Not Let Anyone Sell You a Number
Both themes are light. Both will give you a good Lighthouse score on decent hosting with compressed images. Any article quoting an exact millisecond gap between them measured one test site on one day, and your site is not that site.
Your page speed comes down to your host, your image sizes and how many plugins you have stacked on top. Neither of these themes will be your bottleneck.
Which One Should You Pick?
Pick Blocksy If
- You are a freelancer or agency. $149 a year, or $499 once, for unlimited sites with white labelling is the best value in this category.
- You want a lifetime licence and to stop paying renewals.
- You spend a lot of time in the Customizer and want the faster one.
- You are building a WooCommerce store and want the shop features in the theme rather than a bolt on.
- You prefer an independent vendor to a hosting company's software division.
Pick Kadence If
- You want Kadence Blocks, which is the best reason to buy Kadence and comes in every plan of the bundle, from $350 a year.
- You want one vendor and one invoice for theme, blocks, donations, events and courses through Give, The Events Calendar and LearnDash.
- You lean on starter templates to ship client work quickly.
- You value the larger install base and the bigger pool of tutorials.
- You are working on older sites that have not been updated to WordPress 6.7.
The Conclusion, In Full
This site runs Blocksy as the theme and Kadence Blocks for the layouts, and that split is what I would recommend to most people: the better theme from one company, the better block library from the other. If you already have a working Kadence site, though, migrating it just to save money is unpaid work with a small payoff, and I would give anyone the same advice.
But if you asked me what to install on a new project tomorrow, I would say Blocksy, and I would say it without much hesitation. It is rated higher by more people, it ships roughly three times as often, it needs fewer clicks to do the same work, and its licensing is dramatically friendlier to anyone running more than one site. A $499 lifetime Agency licence against $599 every year for ten Kadence sites is a different business model.
The case for Kadence is the ecosystem, and it is still a real one. If you want your theme and block library together with Give, The Events Calendar and LearnDash from one company on one renewal date, Kadence is the only one of the two that offers it. But at $350 a year for a single site, it only pays off if you will use those plugins too. Buying it just for the theme is like hiring a removals lorry to move a lamp. Just go in knowing you are buying a bundle, not a theme.
Both are free to try properly, and neither free version is crippled. Install both on a staging site and spend an evening in each Customizer. Whichever one stops making you hunt for settings is the one you should buy, and that is a better test than anything either of us can write down.
Kadence vs Blocksy, Frequently Asked Questions
Is Blocksy better than Kadence?
On the theme alone, mostly yes. Blocksy is rated 100 out of 100 on WordPress.org from 872 ratings against Kadence's 98 from 455, it has shipped 445 releases to Kadence's 129, and its Customizer is faster to work in. Kadence wins on ecosystem, because Kadence Blocks, Give, The Events Calendar and LearnDash all come in one bundle from one vendor.
Did Kadence copy Blocksy?
The WordPress theme repository shows Blocksy's first published version, 1.0.4, dated 21 February 2019, and Kadence's first, 0.8.4, dated 19 August 2020. So the Blocksy theme came roughly 18 months earlier. But Kadence Blocks had been on WordPress.org since August 2018, before Blocksy's theme existed. Both were solving the same post-Gutenberg problem at the same time, which is why they converged.
Is Blocksy Pro worth it?
For one site, Business at $99 a year is the tier worth buying, because Personal at $69 excludes the pro starter sites, the Shop extension, the Post Types extension and white labelling. For anyone running client sites, Agency is exceptional value at $149 a year or $499 as a one time lifetime purchase covering unlimited sites. There is a 14 day refund window.
Is Kadence any good?
Yes. 500,000 active installs, 98 out of 100 on WordPress.org, and Kadence Blocks separately holds 96 out of 100 across 600,000 installs. It is a good theme with an unusually complete ecosystem around it. Its weaknesses against Blocksy are release cadence, a slower Customizer, and licensing that starts at $350 a year for a single site.
Does Kadence have a lifetime deal?
No. Kadence sells one yearly bundle, priced by the number of sites: $350 for 1 site, $599 for 10, $799 for 25, $899 for 50 and $999 for 100, all per year. Blocksy does offer lifetime licences, at $199 for 1 site, $299 for 10 sites and $499 for unlimited sites. If you specifically want to stop paying renewals, that is a decisive difference between the two.
Which is faster, Kadence or Blocksy?
In practice they are close enough that it will not decide your Core Web Vitals. Both output light markup and both score well on a decent host. Any article quoting an exact millisecond gap measured one test site on one day. Your hosting, your image sizes and your plugin count will move your speed far more than the choice between these two themes.
Can I use Kadence Blocks with the Blocksy theme?
Yes. Kadence Blocks is a plugin and works with any WordPress theme, including Blocksy. A lot of people run exactly that combination, taking Blocksy's Customizer and licensing with Kadence Blocks for page layout. You lose the shared colour and typography settings you get when both come from Kadence, but nothing breaks.
Who owns Kadence now?
Nexcess, which is part of Liquid Web. kadencewp.com now redirects to Liquid Web's site and the theme lists Nexcess as its author on WordPress.org. Blocksy is still made by Creative Themes and remains independent. Whether that matters to you depends on how you feel about hosting companies owning the software you build on.
Which theme is better for WooCommerce?
Blocksy, if you want the shop features in the theme itself. Its WooCommerce integration covers the product gallery, quick view and floating cart natively. Kadence now sells one bundle from $350 a year, so check the bundle page for the store features you need before you buy. Blocksy Business at $99 a year is the cheaper way to run a store.
Do I need the paid version of either?
Often no. Both free themes include a header and footer builder, global colours and typography and full block editor support, which is enough for a complete site. You pay when you need conditional headers, deeper WooCommerce control, starter template libraries or white labelling for clients. Start free on both and upgrade only when something blocks you.
What is the best WordPress theme in 2026?
There is no single answer, but the serious shortlist is short: Blocksy, Kadence, GeneratePress and Astra. Astra has the largest install base at 1 million, GeneratePress and Kadence sit at 500,000 and Blocksy at 300,000, and all four rate 98 or higher on WordPress.org. Blocksy is the one I would start with today for its licensing and update pace.
Can I switch from Kadence to Blocksy later?
Yes, but budget real time for it. Your posts and pages carry over because the content lives in WordPress, not the theme. What does not carry over is everything configured in the Customizer: headers, footers, colours, typography and layout settings all have to be rebuilt. Any Kadence Blocks content keeps working, since that is a separate plugin.
More WordPress Theme Guides on Blogger Tutor
- Kadence Blocks vs Elementor, block plugin against page builder
- Blocksy theme review, why I tested it against Kadence
- Kadence vs Astra, the two most common picks
- Kadence vs GeneratePress
- Kadence Pro theme review and setup tutorial
- How to actually speed up a WordPress site
Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links and I earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. I earn on both Kadence and Blocksy, so there is no financial reason for me to favour either. Ratings, install counts, version numbers and first release dates come from the WordPress.org theme and plugin repositories, and pricing from each vendor's own page, all checked on 21 October 2026. You can read exactly how I test, verify and update everything on this site.
