Salient theme review: Salient is a multi-purpose WordPress theme that is largely considered to be one of the best, if not THE best WordPress themes out there.
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Salient WordPress Theme Review: The Complete Guide
The Salient WordPress theme has established itself as one of ThemeForest’s most popular premium themes, with over 150,000 sales and an impressive average rating of 4.8/5 stars. After spending several weeks testing this versatile theme on multiple websites, I’ve created this comprehensive review to help you determine if Salient is the right solution for your WordPress project.
This in-depth review will explore Salient’s key features, performance metrics, customization options, and overall value proposition. As someone who has worked with dozens of premium WordPress themes, I’ll honestly assess where Salient excels and where it might not be the perfect fit.
What is the Salient WordPress theme?
Salient is a multipurpose WordPress theme developed by ThemeNectar. It was first released in 2013 and has been continuously updated since then. It’s designed to be a complete solution for creating virtually any type of website: business sites, portfolios, online stores, blogs, membership sites, and more.
The theme comes bundled with the WPBakery Page Builder (formerly Visual Composer), giving you powerful options for creating custom layouts without coding. This flexibility, combined with its extensive feature set, has helped Salient become one of ThemeForest’s all-time bestsellers.
If you need help with designing a new website, please check in here.
Key features of the Salient theme
Extensive design options
Salient offers an impressive array of design customization options through its intuitive theme options panel. You can easily adjust:
Typography: Access to the entire Google Fonts library with granular control over font sizes, weights, and line heights
Colors: Comprehensive color settings for every element of your site
Layouts: Choose from boxed or full-width layouts with various header styles
Effects: Implement parallax backgrounds, animations, and hover effects
Custom CSS: Add your own custom CSS directly from the admin panel
The theme strikes an excellent balance between providing extensive customization options and keeping the interface intuitive for beginners.
Powerful page building tools
Salient comes with two page builders:
Nectar Page Builder: ThemeNectar’s proprietary page builder is designed specifically for Salient
WPBakery Page Builder: The popular drag-and-drop page builder (a $64 value included free)
The Nectar Page Builder deserves special mention for its seamless integration with the theme. It includes:
- 100+ custom elements explicitly designed for Salient
- Pre-designed section templates
- Global sections for reusable content
- Responsive editing controls
- Advanced animation options
This tight integration between the theme and its custom page builder creates a more cohesive editing experience than many competing themes.
Impressive demo content
One of Salient’s standout features is its extensive library of pre-built demos. At the time of this review, the theme includes over 50 complete demo sites covering various industries and use cases:
- Corporate and business
- Creative portfolios
- Online shops
- Blogs and magazines
- Landing pages
- Membership sites
The one-click demo import makes it remarkably easy to get started with a professional-looking site. You can import an entire demo or just specific pages, which gives you tremendous flexibility when building your website.
WooCommerce integration
For those building online stores, Salient offers excellent WooCommerce integration with custom-designed shop pages, product templates, and checkout processes. The theme includes:
- Multiple shop layout options
- Custom product page designs
- AJAX cart functionality
- Wishlist features
- Enhanced product image options
The WooCommerce elements are thoughtfully designed and blend seamlessly with the rest of the theme, creating a cohesive shopping experience.
Advanced portfolio features
Salient excels at portfolio presentations, offering some of the most flexible and visually impressive portfolio options I’ve seen in a WordPress theme:
- Multiple portfolio layout styles (grid, masonry, carousel)
- Category filtering with AJAX loading
- Advanced hover effects
- Lightbox integration
- Video and slideshow support
- Custom project attributes
These features make Salient an excellent choice for creative professionals who want to showcase their work effectively.
Performance and optimization
Website performance is increasingly important for user experience and SEO, so I tested Salient using several tools,, including Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix.
Page speed tests
I created a test site using Salient’s business demo with the following results:
- Google PageSpeed Insights: 85/100 mobile, 94/100 desktop
- GTmetrix: 89% Performance Score, 1.2s fully loaded time
These are impressive numbers for a feature-rich premium theme, especially compared to many other multipurpose themes that often sacrifice performance for functionality.
Performance optimization features
Salient includes several built-in performance optimization features:
- Image lazy loading
- Minification options for CSS and JavaScript
- Selective feature loading
- Responsive image handling
- Reduced plugin dependencies
The theme allows you to disable features you’re not using, which helps minimize unnecessary code loading and improves page speed.
SEO capabilities
Salient provides a solid foundation for search engine optimization:
- Clean, SEO-friendly code structure
- Schema markup integration
- Support for popular SEO plugins like Yoast SEO and Rank Math
- Customizable meta information
- Proper heading structure
- Mobile optimization
While dedicated SEO plugins are still recommended for serious optimization, Salient’s clean code base and proper implementation of SEO fundamentals give you a good starting point.
Mobile responsiveness
In my testing, Salient performed excellently across various devices and screen sizes. The theme includes:
- Fully responsive layouts that adapt to all screen sizes
- Touch-friendly elements for mobile users
- Mobile-specific options for header styles and navigation
- Responsive image handling to optimize load times
- Mobile customization options in the page builders
You can also preview your site at different screen sizes directly within the page builder, making it easier to ensure your content looks great on all devices.
Theme options and customization
Salient’s theme options panel is comprehensive without being overwhelming:
Theme options panel
The well-organized theme options panel includes settings for:
- Header styles and navigation
- Footer configuration
- Blog layouts and settings
- Portfolio configurations
- WooCommerce integration
- Global colors and typography
- Social media integration
- Performance optimisation
The options are logically grouped and include helpful descriptions, making navigating the extensive customization possibilities easier.
Header builder
Salient’s header builder deserves special mention, offering:
- Multiple header layouts (standard, centered, full-width)
- Transparent header options
- Sticky header functionality
- Custom button integration
- Off-canvas navigation options
- Header color animations on scroll
This flexibility allows you to create unique, branded header designs that seamlessly integrate with the rest of your site.
Salient theme support and documentation
ThemeNectar provides comprehensive documentation for Salient, including:
- Detailed written documentation
- Video tutorials
- Regular updates addressing bugs and adding features
Support is provided through a ticket system with generally positive response times. Most support questions receive responses within 24 hours during business days, standard for premium themes on ThemeForest.
Pricing
Salient is available on ThemeForest for $60, which includes:
- All theme features and functionalities
- WPBakery Page Builder ($64 value)
- Nectar Page Builder
- All demo content
- 6 months of support from ThemeNectar
Extended support for 12 months is available for an additional $18, which is recommended if you anticipate needing assistance beyond the initial setup period.
Types of websites you can use Salient for
As earlier mentioned, the Salient theme is a multipurpose theme. And this means that you can use it to create almost any type of WordPress-powered website. Some of the websites that you can build using theme include:
- Corporate websites
- E-commerce sites
- Portfolios
- Personal blogs
- News websites
- Niche sites
Pros
- An extensive feature set that works for almost any website type
- Excellent page building tools with the custom Nectar Page Builder
- Impressive library of 50+ demo sites
- Strong performance metrics despite feature richness
- Regular updates and ongoing development
- Comprehensive WooCommerce integration
- Standout portfolio functionality
- Reasonable price considering the included premium plugins
Cons
- Learning curve for beginners due to extensive options
- Some advanced customizations still require CSS knowledge
- It can feel overwhelming if you only need a simple website
- Reliance on a proprietary page builder could create lock-in
- Some features overlap with functionality typically handled by plugins
Who should use the Salient theme?
Salient is ideal for:
- Web designers and agencies building client websites
- Business owners who want a professional site with room to grow
- Online store owners need WooCommerce integration
- Creative professionals showcasing portfolios
- Bloggers looking for flexible content presentation options
The theme might not be the best fit for:
- Complete beginners looking for extreme simplicity
- Straightforward projects where a lighter theme would suffice
- Developers who prefer to code everything from scratch
Comparison with alternative themes
To provide context, here’s how Salient compares to other popular multipurpose themes:
| Feature | Salient | Avada | Divi | Astra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $60 | $60 | $89/year | $47+ |
| Page Builder | Nectar + WPBakery | Fusion Builder | Divi Builder | Works with most |
| Demo Sites | 50+ | 90+ | 1500+ | 180+ |
| Performance | Excellent | Good | Good | Excellent |
| WooCommerce | Strong | Strong | Good | Strong |
| Learning Curve | Moderate | Steep | Moderate | Gentle |
Salient holds its own against these competitors, particularly excelling in the balance between features and performance.
How to get started with the Salient theme
If you decide to purchase Salient, here’s a quick guide to getting started:
- Purchase and download the theme from ThemeForest
- Install the theme by going to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme
- Activate the theme and install required plugins when prompted
- Import a demo site through the Salient admin panel
- Customize your site using the theme options panel
- Create pages using either Nectar Page Builder or WPBakery
- Configure your menus, widgets, and global settings
The process is straightforward, and most users can have a basic site running within an hour of installation.
Salient videos
Salient overview from Theme Nectar.
Here is a very useful Salient theme tutorial.
Verdict
After thoroughly testing the Salient WordPress theme, I can confidently recommend it for most website projects. Its extensive features, strong performance, and excellent design flexibility make it one of the top premium themes.
The theme’s greatest strength is its versatility—it provides the tools to create virtually any website while maintaining good performance and user experience. While there is a learning curve, the investment in mastering Salient pays off in the ability to build sophisticated, professional websites without custom coding.
For designers, agencies, and site owners who value flexibility and comprehensive features, Salient represents excellent value and should definitely be on their shortlist of premium WordPress themes.
Salient FAQ
Is Salient good for beginners?
Salient has a moderate learning curve due to its extensive features. It’s accessible to motivated beginners but might feel overwhelming if you’re completely new to WordPress. The detailed documentation and demo content help flatten this curve.
Can you use Elementor with Salient?
In a word, no. Salient comes pre-packaged with its own version of WP Bakery (Visual Composer), which we have to say is excellent. WP Bakery was one of the first page builders and is still strong. It is not quite as popular or versatile as Elementor, but it still is a very robust WordPress page builder that has and will keep improving.
Having said this, Salient is an absolutely killer responsive multi-purpose theme!
Is the Salient theme good for any business niche?
Yes absolutely, Salient is so adaptive that it can literally be used for any type of business or niche. From online professionals, ecommerce and all residential or commercial businesses. Salient is perfect and can be adapted for anything, the only limitation is your mind, not this theme.
Is Salient good for ecommerce?
Yes, Salients WooCommerce integration is marvellous and helps to make your ecommerce store look sleek, professional, pragmatic and user friendly.
Does Salient work with Gutenberg?
Yes, Salient is compatible with the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg). However, the theme is optimized to work with its bundled page builders, so you’ll get the most benefit from using either Nectar Page Builder or WPBakery.
What is missing or needs to be added to the Salient theme?
Great question. As mentioned in the last Q&A, we will also list a few more things that we feel Salient lacks or needs to be added. So here goes, in no particular order:
- Tooltips options for menu, pricing and/or anywhere on the site
- Pricing switcher for tables to show monthly or yearly etc
- Header and footer builder for Salients Visual Composer (WP Bakery)
- More customising options for the header, which may relate to the above
- Faster loading to compete with Astra or Kadence themes
- Breadcrumb options automatically on pages and posts, not just on Woocommerce
- An easier way to customise the layout of the blog header and blog post headers
Is the Salient theme good for SEO?
Yes, Salient is a multipurpose SEO-optimised WordPress theme that is well known for being a high-quality, top-level theme without too many WordPress plugins.
Having a well SEO optimised theme is of course important, it needs to load quite quickly, have not too much junk code, have a lazyload function for images, not be bloated by too much Javascript (JS) or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and obviously be quite attractive to look at. Salient satisfies on all levels.
As we mentioned before though, it is not the quickest but it does ok. If you are looking to speed up the Salient theme or any theme, please have a look at our review of NitroPack or WP Rocket.
Is our Salient wordpress theme review biassed?
No, absolutely not. We work with a lot of themes/templates and we have found Salient to be up there with the absolute best multipurpose WordPress themes. Salient does not have confusing theme options, too many plugins, or a confusing interface, it is almost the perfect responsive multi purpose theme.
Isn't WP Bakery old hat now?
Absolutely not no. The Salient Visual Composer or WPBakery page builder is very intuitive, slick and always works well with no bugs at all. We have come across other WordPress themes that use wpbakery and half of the features are buggy, do not work or have severe responsive problems.
How often is Salient updated?
ThemeNectar regularly updates Salient, typically releasing major updates every few months and smaller updates more frequently. The theme has been consistently maintained since its initial release in 2013.
Is Salient compatible with popular plugins?
Yes, Salient works well with most well-coded WordPress plugins. It has been tested with popular options like Yoast SEO, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WooCommerce, and membership plugins.
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