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11 Most Popular “Free” WordPress Themes
In this post, we cover the Most Popular “Free” WordPress Themes to use for your WordPress Website.
One of the best things about having a website on WordPress is the choices of themes for creating professional websites. To be more precise, WordPress offers over 8,500+ free themes in the official themes repository. The number is increasing every day.
If you are a beginner, we understand that you might feel overwhelmed with the wide range of options.
Let’s look at the 11 most popular free WordPress themes along with their features, demo sites, ratings, and user reviews. (Note: the default WordPress themes are not included in this post)
So, let’s start.
| Rank | Theme | Active Installs | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Astra Theme | 1 million+ | 5/5 |
| 2 | Hello Theme by Elementor | 1 million+ | 4.5/5 |
| 3 | OceanWP Theme | 700,000+ | 5/5 |
| 4 | GeneratePress Theme | 500,000+ | 5/5 |
| 5 | Neve Theme | 300,000+ | 5/5 |
| 6 | Kadence Theme | 200,000+ | 5/5 |
| 7 | Storefront Theme | 200,000+ | 4.5/5 |
| 8 | Blocksy Theme | 100,000+ | 5/5 |
| 9 | Sydney Theme | 100,000+ | 5/5 |
| 10 | ColorMag Theme | 100,000+ | 5/5 |
| 11 | OnePress Theme | 90,000+ | 4.5/5 |
1. Astra Theme
Astra is a fully customizable WordPress theme useful for multiple types of websites like a blog, portfolio, business, eCommerce, etc.
Made for speed and SEO in mind, the theme is super light and clean. Undoubtedly, Astra is the most popular WordPress theme with over 1 million active installs.
People love Astra for the ease it offers in creating professional websites. It lets you pick and import a demo on your website from the library of 150+ starter sites. Moreover, Astra is compatible with major page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, Divi, and SiteOrigin.
What users say about Astra Theme
Astra has 4,900+ ratings and reviews from its users with a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars. Here’s what they have to say about this theme.
2. Hello Theme by Elementor
Hello Elementor is another great theme on the list with over 800,000 active installations. It’s a fast and lightweight theme created by Elementor, the popular WordPress page builder plugin. This theme is created with the sole aim to be integrated and bring the best out of Elementor.
In addition, Hello Elementor gives complete freedom for creating a website with maximum styling and design. Along with header and footer builders, you can also customize the color, logo, typography, and other options. Being a lightweight plugin, it reduces the load time of websites made with Hello Elementor.
What users say about Hello Elementor
Surprisingly, it has less than 100 reviews. However, it’s rated 4.7 out of 5 stars, from the experience of real users. Here’s what the users are saying about Hello Elementor.
3. OceanWP Theme
OceanWP is a multipurpose WordPress theme for blogs, portfolio sites, online stores, and business sites. It is created with lightweight codes and best SEO practices for fast and optimized websites. Other important features of OceanWP include RTL and translation ready, responsiveness, extensions, WooCommerce ready and more.
Moreover, the compatibility with page builder plugins like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, etc. lets you customize your website visually with drag-and-drop features. Or, you can even import a demo site from its library of 150+ premade websites.
What users say about OceanWP Theme
OceanWP has an incredible user base of 700,000 + users. With over 4,800 reviews and ratings, it’s been rated 4.9 out of 5 stars. Here’s an excerpt of the ratings and reviews on OceanWP from real users.
4. GeneratePress Theme
GeneratePress is a WordPress theme applicable for businesses, professionals, hobbyists, freelancers, and agencies. It’s built with lightweight codes that enhance the speed and performance of your site. As a result, the SEO ranking of your website increases.
In addition, GeneratePress works well with popular page builders like Beaver Builder, Elementor, and the default WordPress Gutenberg editor. Also, the library of over 70 demo sites lets you import the demo site of your choice. Additional features of GeneratePress include translation, responsiveness, styling controls, etc.
What users say about GeneratePress Theme
With over 400,000 active installations, GeneratePress is among the most popular free WordPress themes. It nails the rating with a perfect 5 star on average. Among 1200+ reviews from real users, here are some of them.
5. Neve Theme
Neve is a WordPress theme famous for its featherweight built for fast and SEO-friendly websites. Being a multipurpose theme, you can use Neve for creating any type of website. It has an abundance of demo templates for easy website creation. Just choose a template, import it, make adjustments, and your site will be ready within minutes.
Also, Neve has lots of options in the WordPress customizer like header & footer builders, custom layouts, colors, fonts, etc. You can adjust each element according to your brand needs. In addition, Neve is compatible with popular page builders for drag-and-drop website editing.
What users say about Neve Theme
Neve has been used actively by over 200,000 WordPress websites worldwide. In the WordPress.org theme directory, it has acquired a 4.8 stars rating from 750+ users. Some of the user reviews are shown below.
6. Kadence Theme
Kadence is a lightweight WordPress theme for lightning-fast websites. With fully customizable features, you can build any kind on sites in no time. Even building customized headers and footers is easy and intuitive.
Moreover, the available demos and integration with different tools allow you to build multiple websites with the Kadence Theme.
It is a relatively new theme in WordPress that has gained popularity and attention in a short span of time. Its usage and active installation are growing at an accelerated speed causing it to be recently acquired by the iThemes Team.
It has 70,000 + active installations till now. This might seem less, but it has the potential to go a long way.
What users say about Kadence Theme
Kadence has bagged a lot of 5 stars giving it an average of 4.9 out of 5 stars. Here are some of the reviews of Kadence from real users.
7. Storefront Theme
Storefront is a popular theme specialized for eCommerce websites in WordPress. It’s created by Automattic, the developers of WooCommerce, the eCommerce plugin to be fully compatible and get the most out of it. With intuitive and flexible Storefront features, it lets you design your home page, product pages, product archive pages, buttons, carts, etc.
Moreover, it has a great responsive layout so that your products look good on desktops, mobile devices, or tablets. The designing of your whole website is possible through the customization options available in the WordPress customizer and the Gutenberg page editor.
What users say about Storefront Theme
Storefront has 200,000+ active installations on the WordPress.org theme directory with 4.5 stars rating. Among the 125+ user reviews shared there, here are some of them.
8. Blocksy Theme
This is special mention for a theme that is gaining a lot of popularity in 2021. Blocksy is a multipurpose WordPress theme that can create websites for businesses, online stores, blogs, portfolios, landing pages, etc. Being a super-fast and responsive theme, it enhances the performance of your website in search engines.
Check out our in-depth Blocksy Free Theme Customization Tutorial.
The Blocksy theme is made to be compatible with Gutenberg with lots of options to make it extendible and customizable. It even works with major page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, and Brizy. With the offered customization, you can page manage layout, header, footer, and sidebars fully.
What users say about Blocksy Theme
It’s a relatively new theme with 30,000+ active installs. It has a perfect 5 out of 5 stars rating from 520+ Blocksy users. Here are some of the user reviews on Blocksy.
9. Sydney Theme
Sydney is another most popular free WordPress theme specialized for creating websites for businesses, freelancers, and professionals. Being fully compatible with Elementor, the robust page builder, designing site layout is easy with a drag-and-drop interface.
In addition, Sydney offers lots of demo sites that you can import and create your website in minutes. Moreover, you can personalize your brand identity with the font, typography, custom logo, etc. options in the WordPress customizer. Other Sydney features include translation-ready, social icons, support, updates, etc.
What users say about Sydney Theme
The free version of Sydney has been installed and used on over 100,000 websites. And, the users have given quite positive feedbacks. Among 480+ ratings and reviews, it has a 4.9 out of 5 stars rating.
10. ColorMag Theme
ColorMag is a popular theme for news and magazine-styled WordPress websites. It focuses on having a fast website with optimized performance and SEO. It offers 25+ different starter sites to help you choose the best layout for the publishing of your articles or news.
If you want to create from scratch, then you can use the native Gutenberg block editor. Or else, you can also use Elementor, the visual drag-and-drop editor for designing. Moreover, you’ll have additional features like responsive design, sticky menu, RTL (Right to Left) ready, documentation, etc.
What users say about ColorMag Theme
ColorMag has 100,000+ active installations with 1300+ ratings and reviews from its users. It has a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars. Here’s what they have to say about this theme.
11. OnePress Theme
OnePress is another popular free multipurpose WordPress theme that can create websites for small businesses, portfolios, agencies, blogs, freelancing, etc. It has a modern, elegant design capable of capturing the attention of your visitors. Moreover, with its responsive design, your site looks good appearing on all devices.
This theme is a great option if you want a one-page site to display all essential content on a single page. In addition, with the parallax background and scrolling, theme customizer, content blocks, and more, you’re sure to give your site eye-catching looks with OnePress.
What users say about OnePress Theme
With 90,000+ active installations, OnePress takes a pretty good spot in the most popular free themes in WordPress. It’s has a decent rating of 4.6 stars and a lot of positive reviews. Here’s an excerpt of reviews from OnePress users.
Conclusion
So, there you have the most popular free themes in WordPress. We have collected and listed these themes based on active installations, growing popularity, ratings, and reviews from users. We hope that you can pick the right theme for your site as well.
Next up, you can have a read on how to add a theme to your WordPress website. Here, you can learn 3 different ways to install a theme in WordPress.
