Update: This article was written a few weeks after an update to thrive Architect was released. Its almost a hate letter. I still strongly dislike Thrive themes’ release practices and how they release updates often without testing. But right now Thrive Architect seems to be a lot more stable and I am back to using it everyday for our clients. Scroll down below for my opinion on how I have decided to overcome this.
I just deleted 500 words about the new Thrive Architect. It looked like a full-blown hate letter to Thrive themes.
I’m glad you will never see that.
Deep breath.
Short answer: Don’t update to Thrive Architect if you are looking for a stable tested software that “just works”. If you are an early adopter who loves to fiddle around with new features and don’t mind bugs, then go ahead.
As of writing this, their version is 2.0.7 and I had to spend an hour porting a previously created page from version 1.5 to 2.0 because I had to change some text in few places. And they claim that the pages built with old version just work. But once you click migrate button on few sections, many things break.
I faced problems with mobile responsiveness, styles, custom css etc. Their new mobile responsive features are so buggy, that I had to reset all formatting, delete elements and recreate elements to get them to work.
As with the long history of Thrive themes as a company that aims to make just-good-enough software and ends up making less-than-good-enough-software, this release isn’t any different.
Its time Thrive themes realizes that they aren’t a startup anymore, and start behaving like a company that makes software for serious businesses.
Generally users are divided into various segments based on how eager they are to adopt a new technology or feature. These segments include innovators and early adopters.
My clients expect me to create solution that work well, and in defined timelines. So I rarely fall into early adopters category. I rather value my time, and don’t derive pleasure out of just playing around with beta software.
In fact no serious business would ever fall into early adopter category. Unless their business is about reviewing software.
And the worst part is, they remove access to their last stable software version. You can’t even rollback the plugin. This is against software release best practices. They force all of their users to use their alpha/beta level software after a major version release.
The same happened for TCB version 1.5 when hundreds and thousands of customers came screaming to their forums with bugs and frustrated clients.
I would expect a company to learn from their mistakes. But looks like this is a deliberate strategy move on their part to compensate for poor software development and release practices.
Update: My Solution to Preventing Problems Like This
- Never update your plugins or themes immediately after a major update is released. This is true for all WordPress plugins and themes. But more true for Thrive themes’ products.
- How do you know if its a major or minor update? Every WordPress plugin and theme has a version number that looks like this – 1.4.8.
- If the last number changes (eg. from 1.4.7 to 1.4.8) then in 99.99% of cases its perfectly okay to update without thinking much.
- If the first two numbers change, then its better to wait for a while. During this period there are other users testing the software and reporting bugs. So eventually you can start using it after those bugs are fixed.
- Have a hosting solution that provides you with staging feature. Like Siteground’s GoGeek plan which I use, love and recommend. (Disclaimer: Affiliate link).
- Perform updates on the staging site, test it well and then apply the changes to live site. Its the safest way to keep your online business functional.