WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems and website-building platforms on the internet. And for good reasons: it offers more customisability and freedom than virtually anything else (except for coding all the HTML yourself!)
Part of this flexibility comes in the form of themes: outfits for your website you can use to control things like the font, colours, and layout. These helpful components allow you to make your blog just how you want it to look.
Better yet, many themes are 100% free, just like WordPress – perfect for anyone on a budget.
But which are the best themes out there? That’s what we explore in this post. Here, we list the top new and popular free themes so you can build the best website possible, discussing how customisable they are and how simple they are for beginners to start using.
So, without further ado, let’s explore some themes.
General Blogger Themes
Astra
Astra is among the most prevalent WordPress themes available, now used by over a million people. It’s popular because of its speed. Page themes are less than 50 KB, making it lightweight in most (if not all) situations and an excellent choice for SEO.
Level Of Customisability
Astra is suitable for virtually any website you own, from travel blogs to personal bio pages. The theme provides over 100 free WordPress templates you can use to get started based on plugins like Divi, Elementor and Beaver Builder. As with the theme, these are suitable for almost any website, from personal brand pages to product sites.
Unfortunately, the free version has limited functionality. If you want pro features, you’ll have to pay a premium.
Easy For Beginners?
Astra has a user-friendly interface. However, extensive customisation options usually mean a steeper learning curve for beginners, so you will need some technical skills to use this product.
Neve
Neve’s main appeal is its focus on speed. It manages to get the average page size down to just 32.4 KB, the smallest of any theme in this review. It is also compatible with WordPress accelerated mobile pages (AMP), which ties neatly into Google’s Page Experience push. Neve makes navigating your website a breeze for mobile and tablet users.
Level Of Customisability
Like other established themes, Neve offers high customisability, with templates for blogs, shops, and online portfolios. You have complete control over the website’s layout and can define the structure and presentation of every page.
You also get mobile-friendly tweaks. These allow you to format pages for mobile screens with limited space.
Unfortunately, you must sign up for Neve Pro for advanced features like custom fonts and layout options.
Easy For Beginners?
Neve is relatively straightforward to set up and activate, and the live customiser updates let you see what you are doing in real time. This feature means you can switch back and forth between editing and previewing – always handy!
However, it isn’t the perfect tool for beginners. There’s a steep learning curve if you stray outside of the theme’s “starter sites” – and they are only available when you subscribe.
Zakra
Zakra is another highly successful WordPress theme for general bloggers. It’s AMP-ready and has built-in custom CSS features for those wanting to tailor their pages more. It is also a good option if you expect your website users to access you globally, thanks to its multilingual support via plugins like WPML and Polylang.
Level Of Customisability
Like the most popular tools above, Zakra lets you use WordPress’s “live customiser,” allowing you to see any changes you make in real time. It also has global settings to change your site’s overall look and feel, including styles, colours, buttons, and typeface.
Unfortunately, you can only get access to page-level settings when you sign up for the pro version. So, if you want to remove headers and footers for a specific page, you’ll need to subscribe.
Easy For Beginners?
Zakra is easy to use, thanks to its 30 free starter site templates and one-click demo importer. These let you build pages quickly without too much fiddling. Simply choose a good-looking template that fits your needs using the one-click importer for all your text and images, and the software will do the rest.
Themes For Bloggers Who Sell Products
Woostify
Woostify is another free WordPress theme worth checking out. It has a five-star rating and offers numerous features to help bloggers make the most of video galleries and WooCommerce stores.
Like Astra, Woostify’s appeal is its lightweight and versatile setup. Product listings, checkout pages, and content load fast, boosting SEO and reducing user frustration.
Level Of Customisability
Woostify offers numerous page layouts for website types, including ecommerce stores, directories, and personal pages. It also has helpful elements that make checkout pages more engaging to reduce cart abandonment.
As you might expect, it is compatible with all the popular page builders, such as Divi, Elementor, and Beaver Builder. This gives you drag-and-drop functionality, which is helpful when starting out.
Easy For Beginners?
Woostify aims to be as easy as possible for beginners by offering pre-built live demos and a “Customizer” tool that lets you see changes immediately. The native e-commerce integration allows new store owners to set up sites fast.
The downside is the steep learning curve required to make customisations. While Woostify offers support, understanding all the jargon is tough.
Hestia
Hestia is another highly customisable WordPress theme used by thousands of bloggers across the planet. It is unique because of its page-builder compatibility, slick material design, and uncompromising speed.
The cool thing about Hestia is that it lets you preview successful sites built using its platform.
Many website owners use these to pinch ideas (instead of reinventing the wheel).
Currently, Hestia is sitting on over 100,000 downloads and is suitable for bloggers with ecommerce stores, thanks to its professional and modern design and WooCommerce integration.
It is also retina-ready, meaning you can create websites that still look stunning on high-resolution screens.
Level Of Customisability
Hestia’s customisability comes from its Customizer, a tool that lets you personalise your website without knowing any code. You can control everything from menus to widgets, header options, appearance, settings, basic site identity information, and blog layouts.
Easy For Beginners?
It also offers a simple and intuitive design. The code-free approach and page builder support mean you can flesh out a website in an afternoon without hiring an expensive web designer.
Themes For Photography Bloggers
Ocean WP
Ocean WP is one of the most-used WordPress themes available, suitable for personal blogs, ecommerce sites and landing pages. Websites using this free builder load fast, and it has built-in WooCommerce support.
Level Of Customisability
Ocean WP’s customisations come from its seven free extensions to expand the theme’s functionality. For example, there are options to pair it with a custom sidebar, social media icons, and a featured slider for more engaging page content.
Easy For Beginners?
Ocean WP is also beginner-friendly, thanks to its drag-and-drop interface and pre-built demos. You can quickly import templates with a single click, pre-building your website and giving you the layout and features you need to get started.
The only downside is accessibility. Ocean WP scatters customisation options across various menus, which can confuse beginners.
Rishi
Rishi – not to be confused with the prime minister – is another performance-optimised WordPress theme ideal for photographers, offering numerous free templates and additional tools that help you comply with GDPR. Testing with GTMetrix shows the 85.7 KB theme loads in a mere 1.2 seconds, ideal for anyone needing an SEO boost.
Level Of Customisability
Rishi’s customisability comes from its 30+ free templates and built-in drag-and-drop interface. This combination enables you to build professional pages for most site types in under an hour.
The theme also offers more cutting-edge options for advanced users. For example, you can use tools to define the headers and footers for each page, changing the layout to fit your site and brand requirements.
You also get Elementor integration, which is helpful if you enjoy using simple website interfaces.
Easy For Beginners?
Rishi is straightforward for beginners, thanks to its starter templates. These offer a solid foundation and eliminate any need to build elements from scratch. It also has a live-editing drag-and-drop page builder that lets you customise the layout without coding.
On the downside, while Rishi does offer documentation and support, it can be dense. After reading an article, it sometimes leaves you scratching your head!
Themes For Business And Marketing Bloggers
Rambha
Rambha is one of the newest WordPress themes available and aims to make building business websites straightforward. It has a sleek, black design to create a compelling site that fits your brand.
Level Of Customisability
As you might expect, Rambha lets you control your site’s colour theme, allowing you to adjust it to your brand’s palette. It also offers a dark backdrop, which makes pages look more elegant and attractive with minimal effort – great for consultancies.
Website owners get some flexibility to match the layout and fonts to your style. However, the developers are still building its functionality, meaning you might hit the occasional roadblock.
Easy For Beginners?
Most people will find Rambha straightforward, mainly because it is so compact. It uses a block-based platform to keep the user interface simple and doesn’t require any coding expertise.
Themes For Writers, Storytellers, And Personal Bloggers
Ground WP
Ground WP is a block-based WordPress theme built for personal and storytelling bloggers. It has various tools to help create content-driven sites, with nearly infinite configurations you can use to make your pages look unique.
The theme’s main feature is its “Fluid Typography.” It creates a responsive design that lets your web pages scale dynamically with users’ screens, improving legibility. You also get “Fluid Spacing” along with this, which adjusts the space between your website elements to keep your pages looking beautiful, no matter what device visitors use.
Level Of Customisability
Because Ground WP is Gutenberg-based, it offers substantial customisation options. The block-based interface is helpful for beginners who want to move elements around on the page.
You also have significant control over how the page looks and feels. The near-infinite configuration options let you play with settings, allowing you to recreate an existing website faithfully.
Easy For Beginners?
Ground WP is okay for beginners wanting to build blogs. There’s a focus on content and adding new articles efficiently. However, it is not suitable for other types of websites, so avoid it like the plague if you want to build anything more complicated.
Colibri WP
Colibri WP was released in 2019 and has become one of the most popular WordPress themes, particularly among bloggers who want to tell stories and write about their personal lives. It now boasts over 60,000 downloads and five-star ratings across the web.
It’s not as well-known as Astra or Ocean WP, but it still offers many of the advanced perks and features you’d expect from a top developer.
Level Of Customisability
Colibri has 34 pre-built content blocks for home pages and various headers you can use to improve the website design creation process. You can also include slideshow hero backgrounds, videos, images, and drag-and-drop components to create a more unique page layout.
Unlike the more restrictive themes, Colibri lets you construct forms and accordion menus. These are helpful when collecting email addresses or managing a site with a complex page hierarchy. That means you can win more email subscribers and arrange your site into more sections to better tell your story.
Easy For Beginners?
Colibri is a good option for beginners because of its high level of customisation and pre-built blocks with drag-and-drop functionality. However, it has a slightly steeper learning curve than basic themes simply because of the sheer range of customisation options it offers. While these help organise complex websites, they might not be suitable if you are just starting a blog.
