AutomaticCSS Review: Best Utility Framework for WordPress

Are you tired of struggling with customizing the style of your WordPress website? As a WordPress professional, I know the feeling of spending countless hours tweaking CSS code to achieve the perfect look and feel for my websites.

It’s a tedious process that often requires writing lines of code from scratch or using bloated frameworks that slow down the website.

But what if I told you there was a solution that could save you time and make your website design process smoother?

That’s why I’m excited to introduce you to AutomaticCSS also known as ACSS, a custom utility CSS framework for WordPress website builder plugins that has the potential to change the game for you.

It’s user-friendly and intuitive and saves you time and effort in creating web pages that are both visually appealing and functionally sound.

In this review, I’ll explore the ins and outs of this revolutionary CSS framework and how it can help you transform your website-building process.

So why wait? Let’s dive into the world of ACSS and see what makes it the ultimate CSS framework for WordPress designers and developers.

Introduction of AutomaticCSS

Automatic.css (ACSS) is a cutting-edge custom utility CSS framework that is designed specifically to be used with WordPress website builder plugins. It offers a wide range of features that enable you to create visually stunning websites quickly and easily.

The framework is built with a focus on simplicity and flexibility, making it easy for even novice website creators to use.

With ACSS, you can eliminate the need for writing repetitive CSS code and instead use pre-defined classes to accomplish specific design tasks such as spacing, alignment, typography, and more. This makes it easier for you to make quick design changes, saving you time and effort.

The framework is easy to install and use, and it comes with comprehensive documentation and guides that include examples and best practices for optimal use. This means that even if you are new to web development, you can easily start using ACSS to enhance your website’s design and functionality.

It is perfect for creating responsive websites that work seamlessly across all devices. Also, it is compatible with all modern browsers, ensuring that your website looks great on every device.

With the help of this framework, you can easily create beautiful typography, buttons, forms, and other UI elements that look great on any screen size.

One of the best features of ACSS is its ability to simplify the design process. It eliminates the need for custom CSS coding, which saves a lot of time and effort. With ACSS, website builders can focus on the creative aspects of web design, rather than spending time on tedious coding tasks.

Overall, AutomaticCSS is a powerful CSS framework that can significantly enhance your WordPress website-building experience. It simplifies the design process by eliminating the need for writing repetitive code and provides a flexible set of utility classes to help you achieve your desired design outcome.

Whether you are an experienced web developer or a beginner, ACSS can help you create beautiful, functional websites with ease.

Automatic.css (ACSS) is a revolutionary custom utility CSS framework for WordPress website builders created by Kevin Geary, CEO of Digital Gravy, a digital agency specializing in web design for service-based businesses.

Launched in November 2021, ACSS quickly gained popularity and became the #1 voted CSS utility framework for WordPress page builders in just a few months.

In addition, Kevin has created Frames for ACSS, an accessible, design-ready development library that cuts website creation time in half. As a practitioner, Kevin’s products are based on his real-world experience working with clients on strategy, web design, SEO, and copywriting.

Main Features of AutomaticCSS

In this section, we will take a closer look at the main features of AutomaticCSS, the best utility framework for WordPress.

We will explore how ACSS makes web development faster, easier, and more efficient by offering automatic typography, responsive grids, customizable colors, and spacing, as well as fallbacks for unsupported browsers.

With AutomaticCSS, you can streamline your development process and create stunning websites with minimal effort.

Automatic Typography

The Automatic Typography feature of AutomaticCSS ensures that your website’s text is not only visually appealing but also perfectly scaled and proportioned. With 12 different size options, your website’s text is designed to follow a mathematical hierarchy that ensures perfect scaling on any device.

Whether it’s a heading, paragraph, list, or form field, the Automatic Typography feature ensures that your text looks great on all screen sizes. The best part is that you have complete control over this feature from the Automatic.css dashboard.

This means that you can easily adjust the typography to match your brand and improve the readability of your website. Whether you’re a blogger, small business owner, or designer, the Automatic Typography feature of AutomaticCSS is an essential tool for creating a visually stunning and user-friendly website.

Automatic Colors

With AutomaticCSS, creating a consistent and professional color scheme has never been easier. The Automatic Colors feature allows you to choose your brand colors and instantly generate six shade variations of each.

This means you’ll have a complete color palette to work with for your website’s design, without having to manually create and match shades yourself.

In addition to being able to choose your brand colors, you can also use these shades with custom classes and IDs using the Automatic.css color utility variables. This opens up a world of possibilities for your website’s color scheme and design.

This feature is especially useful for businesses and organizations that want to maintain a consistent brand image across all their digital platforms.

By simply choosing their brand colors in the ACSS dashboard, they can ensure that their website’s design aligns with their brand guidelines and reinforces their brand identity.

Overall, the Automatic Colors feature is a powerful tool that can save you time and hassle in creating a cohesive and professional color scheme for your website. With just a few clicks, you can have a complete color palette that looks great on any device and is perfectly matched to your brand.

Automatic Spacing

AutomaticCSS offers an intuitive way to handle spacing in your website design. With Automatic Spacing, you can access six different hierarchal values for margins, padding, and gaps.

You can also set six different section spacing values to add space between larger sections of your website. The best part is that these values are all mobile-responsive, so your website looks great on any device.

What’s more, AutomaticCSS includes spacing utility variables that you can use to ensure that custom elements maintain consistent spacing throughout your website. This feature saves you time and effort and helps you achieve a more cohesive design.

For example, you could use Automatic Spacing to create consistent margins and padding for your website’s buttons, ensuring that they all have the same size and spacing.

Or you could use the section spacing values to create distinct areas on your website, making it easier for visitors to navigate. With AutomaticCSS, spacing is one less thing you must worry about in your website design.

Automatic Responsive

The Automatic Responsive feature of ACSS ensures that all elements on your website automatically adjust and scale to fit the viewport of any device or screen size, eliminating the need for manual breakpoint adjustments.

This is achieved through the use of advanced CSS Clamp and Calc techniques, which calculate and apply precise values based on the maximum and minimum dimensions of the viewport.

For instance, if a user switches from a desktop to a mobile device, AutomaticCSS will automatically adjust the font size, margin, padding, and gap sizes to fit the new screen size perfectly.

This makes for a consistent user experience across devices, regardless of whether they are using a desktop, tablet, or mobile device.

The system is highly customizable, allowing you to adjust the responsive behavior to match your specific design and layout requirements.

Additionally, AutomaticCSS’s responsive feature allows you to focus on creating content, rather than worrying about technical details, which is especially beneficial for website owners who lack extensive coding experience.

Automatic Grid

Automatic Grid is a powerful feature of Automatic.css that offers an effortless way to create responsive grids. It allows users to set the number of columns on the desktop view, and the framework handles the rest.

With this feature, website designers can easily create complex layouts with different content blocks, images, and other elements.

Automatic Grid is incredibly flexible, as it is a powerful tool for website developers who want to create beautiful, functional layouts. With the ability to set the number of columns desired on the desktop and let ACSS handle the rest, it eliminates the need to manually adjust breakpoints for responsive design.

This feature saves developers a significant amount of time and effort while creating stunning, seamless designs.

Additionally, ACSS provides complete control over the grid system with traditional grid utility classes for developers who prefer a more hands-on approach.

Whether you are building a simple blog or a complex e-commerce site, AutomaticCSS’s grid feature is the perfect solution to create responsive and visually appealing layouts.

Overall, this feature simplifies the process of creating a responsive grid and ensures a consistent and beautiful layout across different devices.

Automatic Customizability

AutomaticCSS offers a high degree of customization, allowing developers to fine-tune the framework to suit their exact needs and easily create websites that match their design mockups.

The Automatic Customizability feature of ACSS allows for granular control over typography, spacing, and colors, enabling developers to quickly and easily recreate designs from design tools like Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD.

This feature is ideal for agencies and teams that need to maintain brand consistency across multiple websites. This level of customizability makes AutomaticCSS perfect for agencies and teams who need to create a large number of websites with different design requirements.

It offers granular control over the framework, which ensures that the final product is pixel-perfect and meets the client’s exact specifications. With AutomaticCSS, developers can create unique and highly customized websites that stand out from the crowd.

Automatic Fallbacks

AutomaticCSS is designed to provide a seamless experience across all browsers, including those that don’t support Clamp and Calc functions, which are used for responsive design.

Automatic Fallbacks of ACSS is a key feature of AutomaticCSS that ensures your website looks great across all browsers, even those that don’t support the latest CSS features.

With near-perfect fallbacks using Calc for Clamp-unsupported browsers, and “pure” fallbacks using rem or px for Calc-unsupported browsers, your website will maintain its responsive nature without compromising on the design.

With Automatic Fallbacks, you have complete control over these fallback values, allowing you to customize your website to your liking without worrying about compatibility issues. Whether your users are accessing your website on an older browser or a newer one, ACSS has you covered.

Integrations of AutomaticCSS

In this section, we will explore the many integrations available with AutomaticCSS. With its seamless integration with WordPress and compatibility with all popular design software, ACSS offers a wide range of options to streamline your design process.

Additionally, it provides support for all major browsers and is compatible with various third-party plugins, making it a versatile and convenient choice for web designers and developers.

WordPress Website Builders

• Oxygen Builder
• Bricks Builder
• Gutenberg (Coming Soon)
• Zion Builder (Under Consideration)
• Cwicly Builder (Under Consideration)

WordPress Form Builders

• WSForm

Other Platforms

• WooCommerce (Under Consideration)
• Outside of WordPress (Under Consideration)

Pricing Structure of AutomaticCSS

In this section, we will discuss the pricing structure of AutomaticCSS, the best utility framework for WordPress. It offers three different plans to choose from, each with different features and terms. We will provide a breakdown of what each plan includes and the cost of each plan.

Additionally, we will discuss how the licensing system works and how you can easily upgrade or add more activations to your plan.

Here are the pricing details of AutomaticCSS as of April 2023:

• Personal License: Priced at $69/year, this plan includes ACSS WordPress Plugin, support community access, Automatic.css support, and allows activation on 3 websites. All supported platforms are also included.
• Agency Lite: Priced at $99/year, this plan includes ACSS WordPress Plugin, support community access, Automatic.css support, and allows activation on 15 websites. All supported platforms are also included.
• Agency Pro: Priced at $149/year, this plan includes ACSS WordPress Plugin, support community access, Automatic.css support, and allows activation on 100 websites. All supported platforms are also included.

It’s worth noting that canceling your subscription means ending access to support and updates unless the license is renewed in the future. The ACSS license does not turn the framework or plugin functionality on or off. It only controls the user’s access to support and plugin/framework updates.

However, you can still use the current version on your site. If you want to activate more websites, you can upgrade your license to a higher plan or purchase another license.

Additionally, if you’re not satisfied with the product, you can request a full refund within 30 days of purchase regardless of the plan you subscribe to.

PROS of AutomaticCSS

In this section, we will dive into the many benefits of using AutomaticCSS for your WordPress site. From its intuitive and time-saving features to its top-notch customizability options, we’ll explore all the advantages that make it the best utility framework for WordPress.

Whether you’re a developer or a designer, you’re sure to find something that makes your life easier and your website-building experience better.

• Automated & Efficient System: AutomaticCSS makes website development easier and faster with its automatic system that sets certain elements without overdoing them. This means there’s no need to remember to put a class on every single element. The system is also automatically responsive, so no breakpoint adjustments are necessary. It calculates the accuracy of the responsiveness based on your website’s actual max width and minimum device width, and sizing, spacing, and color shades are all automatic. This saves time and streamlines the process of building websites.
• Customizable & Controlled System: AutomaticCSS provides an extreme level of control to the users, enabling them to hook custom classes into the ACSS sizing, spacing, and color systems for unprecedented design consistency. This means that you can customize the system to your specific design needs and have complete control over the entire system. For instance, you can add your own custom classes to the sizing and spacing systems, ensuring that your website has a consistent design throughout.
• Utility-First Philosophy: AutomaticCSS follows a utility-first philosophy, which means it’s free of the bloat that comes with many other utility class frameworks. This ensures that the system is simple and straightforward without endless feature requests and chintzy add-ons. This means you don’t have to worry about unnecessary features or bloated code that slows down your website.
• Perfect Typography: The typography system in AutomaticCSS controls the font size of headings and text across your site. The text sizes follow a perfect mathematical scale, and the system automatically re-calculates the responsive nature of the text. ACSS allows users to set the root font size to their preferred value, making it one of the few frameworks to do so. This ensures that your website has consistent and visually appealing typography across all devices.
• Simple to Use: AutomaticCSS is an easy-to-use system that is intuitive and straightforward, even for beginners. This means that you don’t need to have advanced coding skills to use AutomaticCSS. The system is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to everyone.
• Intelligent Style Management: AutomaticCSS uses an intelligent approach to style management, making it a robust solution. It applies the exact styles you’d expect it to and nothing else, eliminating the need to remove styles before the system can be useful from a custom build standpoint. This means that you don’t have to worry about unpredictable styling or unnecessary code.
• Responsive Design: AutomaticCSS ensures responsive design with a flex and CSS grid that automatically adjusts to the size of the screen. This means that your website will look great on all devices, from desktops to smartphones.
• Admin Panel Global Settings: The admin panel in the WordPress backend allows for easy changes to global settings like base sizing, fallbacks, and colors. This means that you can easily make changes to your website’s design without having to edit each element individually.
• Lightweight System: AutomaticCSS is a lightweight piece of kit that saves time and doesn’t require styling via ID or custom classes. This means that the system won’t slow down your website, and you can focus on building your website instead of worrying about unnecessary code.
• Community Support: The AutomaticCSS community is well-supported, making it easy to find help and resources. This means that you can get help from other users or find resources online to learn more about the system.
• Game-Changing Color System: AutomaticCSS’s color system is a game-changer for website design. The core colors are defined in one place, and from there, AutomaticCSS generates all the necessary shades and hues. This feature makes it easy to develop custom color themes that are consistent across the entire site. The system also ensures that text and backgrounds have enough contrast to meet accessibility standards. With AutomaticCSS’s color system, users can create visually appealing websites that are also easy to read and use.

CONS of AutomaticCSS

In this section, we will discuss the cons of AutomaticCSS, so you can make an informed decision when choosing a utility framework for your WordPress site.

While ACSS offers a lot of great features, there are a few potential drawbacks to consider. It’s important to weigh the pros and cons to determine if this is the right fit for your needs.

• Learning Curve for New Users: While AutomaticCSS is designed to be user-friendly, there may be some features that require a learning curve, especially for beginners. For example, users who are new to CSS may find it challenging to grasp some of the more advanced features of the framework. However, AutomaticCSS provides extensive documentation, video tutorials, and a community forum to help users overcome this challenge.
• Lack of Combined Readymade Design Sets: AutomaticCSS does not come bundled with readymade design templates, and users who wish to use them need to purchase a separate product called Frames. This may add an extra cost and time investment for users who are looking for a quick and easy solution for their design needs.
• Slow Customer Support: Some users may experience slow customer support from AutomaticCSS, which could be frustrating, especially when they encounter problems that need immediate resolution. However, users can also rely on the active community and forums to get help from other experienced users.
• Less Third-Party Content Available: The number of third-party resources available for AutomaticCSS may be less compared to other frameworks, which could limit the availability of plugins, add-ons, and other resources that users need for their projects. However, AutomaticCSS provides extensive documentation and a vibrant community to help users navigate through this.
• Limited WordPress Builder Support: AutomaticCSS currently only works with Oxygen and Bricks Builder, limiting its compatibility with other popular website builders. This could be inconvenient for users who prefer other builders. However, with the support of popular builders like Cwicly and Zion in the roadmap, this issue could be resolved soon.
• Long Tutorial Videos: AutomaticCSS provides comprehensive tutorial videos on their official YouTube channel, but some users may find the videos to be too long and may prefer shorter videos for easier consumption. Nonetheless, these videos provide step-by-step instructions for beginners to learn how to use AutomaticCSS effectively.

Conclusion

Automatic.css is the game-changer CSS framework for those who want to save time, and effort and streamline their website design process to create beautiful, functional websites in a fraction of the time.

This custom utility CSS framework offers a wide range of benefits, including its easy integration with powerful WordPress website builder plugins, responsive design, and comprehensive documentation.

With its customizable features and user-friendly interface, it’s no wonder why this framework is quickly becoming the go-to choice for WordPress designers and developers.

Now, the question is, will you give AutomaticCSS a try? With its numerous advantages, it’s hard to resist giving it a shot. Don’t forget to share this review with your friends and colleagues who might also find it useful.

If you’ve already tried ACSS, we’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below. Did it help you streamline your web design process? What did you like about it? What could be improved? Your feedback is valuable and will help others make informed decisions.