Ollie vs Kadence
Weighing Ollie against Kadence for your next WordPress site? Here’s how the two compare and which is built for what’s coming next.
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Comparing Ollie and Kadence
Same goal, very different approaches. Here’s how Ollie and Kadence each approach building with modern WordPress.
Picking the tools you’ll build with every day is a big deal. So if you’re weighing Ollie against Kadence, here’s an honest look at how the two stack up, and why builders who care about where WordPress is heading are choosing Ollie.
Kadence has been around for years and built a big toolkit of custom blocks, addons, and settings. There’s a lot in there, and for some folks, that’s the appeal.
Ollie takes a different path. We’re newer, lighter, and built entirely on modern WordPress. That means no proprietary block ecosystem to lock you in, no page builder layered under the hood, and no years of legacy code to drag along. Just core WordPress, expertly-crafted patterns, and a focused toolkit that helps you go faster.
It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing the right things, really well.
Ollie vs Kadence: Comparison Table
Automate time-consuming parts of launching a new site with features like the Ollie setup wizard, starter sites, and powerful extensions that supercharge the WordPress editor and help you move faster.
| Feature | Ollie | Kadence | What this means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation | 100% built on the native WordPress site editor | Theme plus a proprietary block library layered on top | A lighter, faster, more portable site |
| Building blocks | Core WordPress blocks only, no custom block ecosystem | Large library of custom Kadence blocks | No lock-in. Your content stays yours forever |
| Design system | Cohesive color, typography, and spacing system | Per-block settings with hundreds of toggles | Beautiful results without design fatigue |
| Patterns | Expertly-crafted patterns and curated collections | Broad pattern library across many styles | Designs that actually go together out of the box |
| AI and agentic readiness | Designed for AI-assisted, prompt-driven building | Traditional builder approach, AI as an afterthought | A workflow that’s ready for where WordPress is heading |
| Site editor experience | All in on the modern WordPress site editor | Mix of legacy customizer and modern editor | One clean interface, no context switching |
| Performance | Lightweight and blazing fast out of the box | Heavier footprint with the full plugin stack | Better Core Web Vitals with less tinkering |
| Team and iteration | Independent small team, ships weekly | Owned by a large hosting company, slower cadence | Faster fixes, real responsiveness, a team that listens |
Built on core WordPress, not bolted on top
Ollie is built entirely on the native WordPress site editor, the same editor WordPress core is investing heavily in for the future. Patterns, global styles, style variations, block themes. These are core WordPress features, and Ollie is designed to make them shine.
Kadence sits on top of WordPress with its own block library, its own settings layers, and its own way of doing things. That made sense back when WordPress didn’t have these tools built in. Today, it’s a lot of weight you just don’t need.
When you build with Ollie, your site is more portable, more performant, and more future-proof, because you’re building with WordPress, not around it.
Made for the AI era
Here’s where things really diverge.
WordPress is entering its agentic era. It’s a future where AI agents can read your site, understand your content, and help you design and build faster than ever before. The products that win in this era will be the ones designed to work with intelligent tools, not against them.
Ollie is being designed from the ground up for this future. Our patterns, color systems, and style variations aren’t just made for humans. They’re structured context that AI agents can use to build cohesive, professional designs on your behalf.
Our roadmap is centered on a prompt-driven site builder where you describe what you want and Ollie does the heavy lifting using the design system we’ve already perfected. We think AI-assisted site building should feel like having a designer in your corner, not a wall of new settings to learn.
That’s a fundamentally different bet than “more blocks, more options.” We believe the future of WordPress is conversational, intelligent, and assisted, and Ollie is the design taste layer that makes AI output look professional, not generic.
Small, fast, and shipping
Ollie is built by two people who’ve been creating WordPress products for decades: Mike McAlister (Array Themes, Atomic Blocks) and Patrick Posner (Simply Static). We’re independent, we own the roadmap, and we ship fast.
Kadence is owned by a large hosting company, and like a lot of products in that situation, it’s slowed down considerably. Big companies move differently. There are committees, quarterly priorities, and a long tail of legacy features to maintain.
We can ship a feature on a Tuesday because we had a great idea on Monday. We can fix a bug the same day you report it. And when WordPress core moves, we move with it, not a year later.
When Kadence might still be the right pick
We’re not here to tell you Kadence is bad. It’s a capable product that’s helped a lot of people build sites.
If you need a massive library of custom blocks for very specific use cases, deep WooCommerce features baked directly into the theme, or a kitchen-sink approach with hundreds of toggles, Kadence may still fit better for you today.
But if you want a clean, modern, native WordPress experience built for the next decade of site building, and especially the AI era that’s already here, Ollie is built for you.
Ollie at a glance
A blazing-fast cloud library of professionally-designed patterns and page layouts that help you design faster and publish sooner.
WordPress native
100% built on the WordPress site editor, no page builder, no proprietary blocks.
Beautifully Designed
Expertly-crafted patterns, full page layouts, and style variations that just work.
Design System
Cohesive color, typography, and spacing presets baked into every collection.
Built for AI
Designed from day one for agentic, prompt-driven site building.
Blazing Fast
Lightweight, performant, and accessibility-friendly out of the box.
Independently Built
Shipped by a small, focused team that moves quickly and listens closely.