When you run more than one blog, you start to notice how much a theme influences day-to-day life. It’s not just how pretty the front page looks — it’s the editing experience, speed, plugin compatibility, licensing, support, and whether the theme forces you into a particular workflow. I’ve been running ashloves.com on Harper (17th Avenue) and lellalee.com on Pipdig’s Holly & Weave, so I want to share what’s genuinely different between them — what’s great, what’s annoying, and which one you should pick depending on your priorities. So here’s my post on 17th Avenue vs Pipdig.

Headline facts (price & licensing)

• Harper (17th Avenue) — as a premium WordPress theme, Harper is typically listed at around £120. It’s built on modern foundations (recently refactored to work with a high-quality builder) and is sold with licensing that allows installation on multiple personal sites. In short: buy it once for your blogs, and you can reuse it across your own projects.
• Pipdig — Holly & Weave (and similar Pipdig themes) — sold at a lower price point, typically around £60 for many WordPress themes, but each Pipdig license is per site; if you want to use the same Pipdig theme across several domains, you’ll need additional licenses or to arrange a multi-site discount.

Those two facts — price and licensing — shape a lot of the downstream differences. Harper is more of an investment up-front but gives you more freedom to reuse it; Pipdig is cheaper initially but becomes more expensive across multiple sites.

Setup & onboarding

Pipdig (Holly & Weave) excels at fast onboarding. When you install the theme you’re often greeted with demo content, step-by-step guides, and video tutorials. For people who want to get a polished blog up quickly without getting deep into site-building, Pipdig’s onboarding is a huge plus. The experience on lellalee.com was “plug, tweak, publish” — and you can produce a very pretty site in an afternoon.

Harper comes with richer, more flexible defaults. Because it’s built to work with a modern builder and has more deliberate template structure, there’s a slightly steeper learning curve if you want to make deeper changes — but that extra time pays off in control. Setup might take longer on ashloves.com if you’re fine-tuning fonts, header behaviour or shop filters, but the result is cleaner and more bespoke.

Design & customization

Pipdig (Holly & Weave) — pretty, feminine, and designer-ready straightaway. Colours, spacing and type are tuned for lifestyle bloggers; if you like a certain look and don’t want to reinvent it, Pipdig gets it right. That said, heavy customisation sometimes means chasing small CSS overrides — Pipdig themes are great for non-coders who want a fast, attractive base.

Harper (17th Avenue) — feels like a “serious” blogging theme: bold typography choices, multiple homepage layouts and built-in affiliate/shop features. Because Harper leverages a more modern builder and more modern tooling, it’s easier to integrate advanced blocks and page-builder sections without bloating the site. If you value subtle design control (header layout, shop filters, post meta options), Harper gives you more of that control out of the box.

Performance & code quality

Performance is where differences become obvious on a daily basis. Harper tends to be leaner when you use it as intended — the more modern builder choices are generally performance conscious, and Harper’s templating and options let you avoid unnecessary JS/CSS. This helps page speed, which is good for mobile visitors and SEO on ashloves.com.

Pipdig themes are optimised for looks and convenience; they include a variety of built-in features which are great, but sometimes at a cost: extra scripts, font loading, and bundled functionality that you might not use. On lellalee that meant extra plugin tweaks and occasional performance work (caching, selective script loading) to hit ideal speed scores. In short: Pipdig is super quick to launch, but Harper is easier to keep slim and fast long-term.

Block editor, page builders and plugin compatibility

If you rely on the block editor or a page builder, Harper plays nicely with modern tools — the theme is compatible with block-based workflows and with common plugins (e.g., WooCommerce, SEO plugins, caching). This makes Harper more flexible for shop features or landing pages.

Pipdig is stable with WordPress, but some Pipdig demos lean on their own shortcodes or theme-specific widgets. That’s handy if you stay within their ecosystem, but can be limiting if you want to swap themes or heavily customise layouts with a third-party builder.

Support, updates & community

Pipdig’s strength is a well-known, quick support model aimed at fashion/lifestyle bloggers — and their tutorial videos are genuinely useful for beginners. If you value hand-holding and quick answers, Pipdig does a solid job.

17th Avenue tends to be developer-friendly; documentation is solid and the theme is updated to work with current WordPress releases. The trade-off is that support sometimes assumes a little technical knowledge — but the upside is fewer “workarounds” and cleaner long-term behaviour. For a site like ashloves.com, that reliability is a real plus.

E-commerce and affiliate features

If you plan to run a shop or affiliate store, Harper includes built-in, filterable shop templates and affiliate-friendly layout choices. Those features feel coherent and are built into the theme’s logic.

Pipdig can support shops too, but more often you’ll rely on plugin integrations and tweaks; that’s fine for smaller stores, but for full affiliate catalogues, Harper’s integrated approach is more convenient.

Costs over time

Think beyond the purchase price. With Harper you pay more up front but get multiple-site use for personal projects, so if you run several blogs, you often save in the long run. With Pipdig, the lower single-site price is attractive — but if you clone the same design across multiple domain,s it adds up because each site generally needs its own license.

When a Pipdig theme is the right choice

• You want speed to launch a pretty blog with minimal fuss.
• You value out-of-the-box demo content and video tutorials.
• You don’t plan to reuse the theme across lots of domains (or you don’t mind buying multiple licenses).
  For lellalee.com, that convenience and beautiful default styling were big wins.

When Harper (17th Avenue) is the right choice

• You want greater long-term control, cleaner performance, and a theme you can reuse across your own sites.
• You plan to run affiliate features or a shop and want integrated templates that behave consistently.
• You’re willing to spend a bit more up front for a more robust, developer-friendly foundation.
  For ashloves.com, Harper’s flexibility and multi-site licensing make it the better long-term fit.

Final thoughts: pick for workflow, not just looks

Both themes deliver beautiful results. The real test is how the theme fits your workflow every week: does it make posting faster? Does it make the site feel snappy for readers? Will you want to clone the setup on future projects?

If you want quick beauty and hand-holding, Pipdig (Holly & Weave) is a delightful, budget-friendly option. If you want a theme that’s built for scale, speed and multi-site reuse, Harper is the wiser investment.

Harper vs Pipdig

Feature	Harper (17th Avenue)	Pipdig (Holly & Weave / Weave)
Price	£120	£60 per site
Licensing	Use on multiple personal blogs	One license per site
Setup / Onboarding	Slightly steeper learning curve, more flexible	Very quick setup, demo content and tutorials included
Design / Customization	Highly customizable, modern, clean layouts	Beautiful pre-designed layouts, easier for beginners
Performance / Speed	Lean, lightweight, optimized	Good out-of-the-box, but may need tweaks for speed
Block Editor / Page Builder Compatibility	Excellent (Kadence / Gutenberg ready)	Works well, but some shortcodes are theme-specific
Support	Developer-friendly documentation, reliable updates	Fast support, beginner-focused tutorials
E-commerce / Affiliate Features	Built-in shop/affiliate templates	Can integrate via plugins; not as seamless
Best For	Bloggers with multiple sites, long-term control, affiliate shops	Beginners or bloggers who want a fast, pretty setup