Choosing Between Bolt (PixelExit) and UI.X 2 (ThemeHouse) — Which One Would You Recommend?

[MAXIM100]

Hi! I'm currently choosing a theme for a forum project in the digital marketing and traffic niche. I'm considering two options:

• Bolt by PixelExit
• UI.X 2 by ThemeHouse

I’d love to hear your thoughts — which one is more reliable, faster, and easier to customize and maintain?
Maybe you have alternative suggestions based on your experience?

Thanks!

 

[Brad Padgett]

I use Bolt myself on my website. Very reliable theme with no bugs discovered as of yet. Both are good themes but in my opinion bolt is much more professional. It's easy to make edits and all that. Also a feature that UI.X 2 has is their nodes add-on if your not tech savvy and need help you may opt for that. I think nodes add-on comes with UI.X 2.

But bolt is a great theme to use.

 

[tajhay]

I tried both. Used UI.X 2 for a few years. It looked fancy and "modern" at first but there was a bit of bloat and occassional bugs. After doing some tests and how badly it fared with seo compared to Bolt, i moved over. Havent looked back since. Both are good choices but IMO Bolt is far better and most importantly is more robust and has better support.

 

[Gemma]

I've used both in the past but now use Nova by PixelExit. Bolt is an excellent theme, it has an excellent framework and that is easy to customize, works well with other addons, and as with all PixelExit themes has excellent support. UI.X 2 is a good theme but maybe not a slick and modern looking as when it was first released. You with definitely run into compatibility issues with other addons if you choose this theme and as tajhay said it comes with bloat. There is also the fact that Themehouse pulled all their addons from XF.com, although saying that they are still here in some capacity and update their themes, but that may be something to consider.

Personally, I'd choose PixelExit all day long.

 

[woody]

I've used PixelExit for 10+ years, no complaints. Working with Russ now on updating my theme for XF2.3 and WP.

 

[Itworx4me]

PixelExit

 

[CedricV]

UIX2 is a 10 year old design. Maybe not released that long, but still, I feel the design is very outdated. Would definitely prefer Bolt over UIX2.

 

[EchoRomeo]

Bolt / PixelExit. Russ provides top-notch service.

 

[Basenotes]

Another vote for Bolt - and anything by @Russ and Pixelexit

 

[Digital Doctor]

What's a good PixelExit theme that i can use until I pay for a custom one ? (EDIT - ill try Bolt I think).



If PE made a custom theme, would it be they customize BOLT or start from scratch ?

Are there "levels" of custom theme ?

full custom, tweaked version of bolt, etc ?

ht tps://xenforo.com/community/resources/bolt.8969/

 

[Alvin63]

There are so many extras in pixel exit themes - I wouldn't use anything else. Extremely good products and no issues. Plus great support as others have said. I'm using xenbase. Tried bolt and it was equally great but xenbase suited my style of forum more. I would also check out Omni.

 

[CedricV]

Russ doesn’t need to advertise himself, he’s already got a fan club bigger than most company marketing budgets.

 

[duderuud]

I switched from UIX2 to a custom version of Bolt for our big board. Much easier to maintain and update.
It is also more lightweight and faster.

 

[Suzanne O]

Pixelexit.

But take a look at Flat awesome. It's just as good as bolt

 

[Ian Hitt]

There's also AC.UI which was a clean and modern design version of UI.X, and comes with a Feeds add-on that makes content discovery more modern as well.