71
Kadence Starter Templates — Predesigned Website Templates
Stunning layouts that come with a side of database anxiety.
HealthyDeclining
71/100
The templates look beautiful but technical bugs can occasionally break your entire website.
Active installs
~415,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 300k+
Rating
4.3★
19 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-23%
Declining
1,865 → 1,444 installs/day
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining · -23% in the last year
1,865/day a year ago→1,444/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayKadence Starter Templates is generally well-regarded for its design variety and ease of use, but a recurring minority of users report serious issues including site-breaking database errors and a broken import process after updates.
What people like
- +Wide variety of quality template designs for different niches and purposes×4
- +Easy onboarding and guided website-building wizard×2
- +Color palette options and modern Gutenberg-compatible designs appreciated×2
- +Support team helped resolve configuration issues
Common complaints
- −Plugin caused site-wide database errors on multiple separate projects, requiring FTP access to delete the plugin to restore the site
- −Template import fails entirely — content does not import and the plugin broke previously working starter template functionality×2
- −Recurring 'Unable to access template database' error reported by multiple users×2
- −No option to selectively skip importing certain content (e.g. demo products) during template import, unlike competing plugins
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.22★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.30★
- 5%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 50% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2024-01-162025-04-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 19 total
Latest reviews · 19 analyzed
- 2025-10-09★★★★★Super Easy AI Website BuilderKrishnakumar KA
- 2024-01-12★★★★★Good idea but doesn't workaburbanowp
- 2023-06-05★★★★★Great helporbixtar
- 2023-03-03★★★★★Unable to view templatesdkexception
- 2023-02-14★★★★★Great Themehealthylivingfromheadtotoe1-shot
- 2023-01-18★★★★★niceinterere
- 2023-01-09★★★★★Plugin Broke My SitesIfegwu-Mbonu Victor C.
- 2022-08-04★★★★★Many great designs to use and learn frommarkuserikssen
- 2022-04-16★★★★★Thank you!cddigital2022
- 2021-02-19★★★★★Nice design and highly customizableColossal Pineapple
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
1,420
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
1,337
Prior 7-day baseline
3,013
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
45,961
Mean release-day peak (30d)
3,182
Latest day · 2026-06-03(tail)
+6.2%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
50%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
3.74
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
79%
5★ share in analyzed sample
5%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.26 → 4.22★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered