Uncode 2 Review: Flexible Design, With a Learning Curve
Uncode suits designers who want control over a creative site or WooCommerce store. Its reusable layouts and shop tools worked well in our tests, including a completed checkout. The tradeoff is a busy interface, heavier demo pages and a builder you will need to maintain. It is a flexible starting point if you are comfortable refining it.
Getting Started With Uncode
Uncode 2 is a premium theme built around its own version of WPBakery. Install the theme, Uncode Core and the bundled builder; Wireframes adds the reusable section library. You do not need a separate WPBakery purchase for the bundled features.
The theme also works alongside plugins such as WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, ACF and YITH Wishlist. Premium plugins included in the download do not automatically give you a direct license for their separate online services.
Our demo import completed, but saving the large options panel required raising PHP’s input limit. Check the vendor’s hosting requirements before importing a full site.
Demo Import Results
The full demo import finished in a little over two minutes and added hundreds of layouts, along with sample products and reusable Content Blocks. It gave us plenty to explore, but also a lot of content to sort through. We imported the menus separately.
This is convenient for exploring the product, but it brings a lot of material into WordPress. For a real site, choose the layouts you need and review the imported menus, forms, shop pages and global settings before opening it to visitors.
The preview photography is not included. Our imported pages used gray placeholder media. The layout structure arrived, but the visual impact of the vendor previews depends heavily on the images and videos you supply.
The import completed, although the debug log included an importer warning and deprecated calls elsewhere in the builder stack. We did not encounter a fatal error in the native import or shopper flows. WooCommerce’s system status reported no outdated Uncode template overrides with the WooCommerce version we used.
Wireframes and the Frontend Editor
Wireframes offers 900 reusable sections, including layouts for content, shops and menus. It was the easiest way to build a page without importing an entire demo.
The native Wireframes library in our sandbox. It showed 900 sections across 31 categories.
We combined five sections and edited the heading in WPBakery. The finished page saved correctly.
Our saved scratch page, using imported section copy and a heading edited through WPBakery.
The frontend editor gives useful visual feedback, but many controls sit inside dialogs. The backend editor makes the row and module structure easier to follow. Both take practice. Reusable Content Blocks also need editing permission enabled in WPBakery’s Role Manager before they open in the visual editor.
Content Blocks and the New Menu Builders
Content Blocks let you edit a shared layout once and reuse it in product templates, footers and menus. Our imported mega menu displayed its grouped shop links and promotional panel correctly.
The imported Shop mega menu open on our test page.
Imported overlay, mobile and off-canvas blocks also rendered, including on a phone. They customize menu content, while the navbar itself still uses the theme’s settings.
An imported Content Block assigned to the off-canvas menu in our sandbox.
The off-canvas menu needs accessibility work. Even with the theme’s accessibility option on, its toggle kept the label “Open menu” while open, did not announce its expanded state and did not close with Escape.
WooCommerce: The Strongest Part of Our Test
Reusable product layouts
The Product Builder uses Content Blocks and dynamic product modules. A shared template showed the correct name, price and purchase controls on a separate product after we edited it visually.
The shared product template applied to a separate test product, rather than a fixed screenshot of the demo item.
Filters and checkout
Category and color filters narrowed the imported shop without a full page reload. Quick View let us choose a product variation and carry the correct item into the cart.
The imported Ajax shop on our install. Product photography is replaced by placeholders.
The custom cart and checkout completed a guest cash-on-delivery order with the correct item, variation and shipping total. This was a test order; we did not verify online payment gateways or third-party checkout extensions.
The completed test order through Uncode’s custom checkout. No payment was collected.
Other store features
The side cart opened with the correct item and subtotal and fitted a phone screen. Its icon needed enabling first. Catalog mode hid the Add to cart button as expected. Wishlists worked through the separate free YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin.
Performance: Our Local Results
On a simulated slower phone, the imported Classic Business page took about 12.2 seconds to show its main content, and the custom product page took 9.3 seconds. The Ajax shop took 3.7 seconds and the plain post 4.2 seconds. Desktop results were much quicker, around 0.7 to 1.2 seconds, but even the plain post transferred about 1.8 MB.
These are local lab results from the full imported setup, using the middle of three runs. They include the builder and shop plugins, shared navigation and placeholder media. We did not test production caching, and the background video did not load in this test.
The practical issue is shared page weight. Start with a restrained layout, remove unused effects and plugins, and measure your finished pages with real media.
Accessibility and SEO
Uncode’s accessibility option is useful, but it is not an accessibility certificate. With it enabled, the skip link appeared. Axe still reported issues on all four sampled pages: Classic Business, the Ajax shop, our product and the plain post.
The common findings were low contrast and unnamed links. For example, the header’s social icon links had no accessible text, and two Classic Business pricing descriptions used #777777 on #f7f7f7, measured at about 4.18:1 for ordinary text. The product scan also flagged small targets. Some findings come from imported content or the selected navigation, so review your actual finished layout rather than assuming every Uncode page has the same issues.
This is consistent with Undsgn’s accessibility guide, which explains the optional accessibility features and warns that not all demo layouts meet its accessibility goals. Automated checks cover only part of the work; our off-canvas keyboard check found limitations the page scans alone would not settle.
For SEO, the four sampled pages each had one H1 and a canonical URL. None had a meta description in this setup, which had no SEO plugin active. WPBakery let us choose the heading level of the Heading module. We did not run Google’s Rich Results Test or verify an SEO plugin integration, so we would not treat these checks as an SEO audit.
What Happens If You Leave Uncode?
Switching to another theme and disabling Uncode’s builder plugins left raw shortcodes in our page. Restoring the theme and plugins brought the layout back. Budget for rebuilding your designs if you later leave this builder.
Pricing and License Differences
The ThemeForest Regular License costs $59 for one site, with future theme updates and six months of support. Bundled plugin updates come through Uncode.
Buying directly, Essential covers one site for $49 a year or $149 once. Professional covers five sites for $129 a year or $249 once; Agency covers unlimited sites for $399 a year or $799 once.
The direct pricing page includes one year of support and updates with annual plans and three years of support with one-time plans. One-time updates depend on the product’s commercial lifetime. The refund policy covers a first purchase within 14 days, subject to its terms. Compare site count and ongoing support as well as the upfront price.
Support and Untested Features
We used the documentation for registration, imports, menu blocks, product templates and accessibility. It was useful, but navigating among theme options, page overrides, Content Blocks and WPBakery’s Role Manager took time. We did not open a support ticket or test response times.
The changelog lists WooCommerce and WPML compatibility updates. Our WooCommerce flows worked, but that does not verify every integration. We did not test WPML, paid Elementor Pro features, Adobe Fonts, external premium slider templates, multilingual checkout, real payment gateways or production caching. ACF, Privacy and Slider Revolution were installed, but their advanced workflows were not separately verified.
Elementor does not convert Uncode’s existing demos or modules into Elementor layouts. If Elementor is your intended builder, start with a theme designed for that workflow. We did not reproduce or rely on older reports of Elementor Pro conflicts.
Alternatives
Salient is the closest comparison for a customized WPBakery workflow. For a simpler starting point in the block editor or Elementor, compare Astra and Kadence. These are workflow alternatives, rather than themes we benchmarked against Uncode.