However, some free WordPress themes are just too sweet to pass up. Some of them are not only awesome looking, but they provide functionality better than some of the themes you would have to pay for. That’s what we’re looking at today, a group of 40 free WordPress themes that you can proudly call your own, for the price of nothing. Free themes are ideal for hobbyists, bloggers, and people who simply want to make an online journal of their thoughts, but they also work wonders for legitimate businesses that want to save some cash for other endeavours.
From parallax effects to beautiful booking pages, each one of these themes has powerful components to make you think twice about paying for a theme. So, without further ado, keep reading to learn more about the best free WordPress themes on the market.
1. Sydney
The Sydney theme is designed for companies and freelancers who want to present a strong online presence. The customization options are rather expansive, with options for Google Fonts, logo uploads, and more. The full-screen slider works nicely for those who want to show off large images or promotional banners, while the full color control offers the ultimate branding environment. Sticky navigation helps people move through your site, and the front page blocks act as somewhat of a drag and drop interface for professionally designing a clean interface.
The theme is responsive for those who want to view the site on mobile devices, and it comes with over 600 Google Fonts for modifying your typography. Sydney is completely translation-ready for reaching out to those who don’t speak your languages, and the parallax background adds a creative aspect to your site. You can choose between a static image or slider, and implement social icons to send customers to your Facebook and Twitter pages.
2. Botiga
If you want your website to really stand out, you need just the right look. Botiga can make that simple to achieve.
This complete e-commerce theme boasts an elegant and sleek design that makes showcasing your store’s products simple and effective. It’s perfect for any industry or business size, and comes with an impressive array of style options. This includes product card customization features, multiple checkout styles, three product page gallery designs, and five header types.
Botiga also lets you add a blog, choose from six different archive layouts, and select from multiple badge styles to promote specific products. It’s a powerful, versatile theme that is definitely worth checking out.
3. Neve
If you’re looking for a modern and fast theme that also works with your favorite page builder, look no further than the Neve theme. This theme is compatible not only with page builder plugins such as Site Origin, Divi, Elementor, and Brizy but it’s also compatible with Gutenberg. As far as design goes, the theme features a clean design that makes your content stand out, so it’s perfect for small businesses, freelancers, and agencies that want to improve their conversion rate. You can customize the color, fonts, and other visual styles and choose from a variety of background possibilities which include sliders, images, video, and more.
The Neve theme also offers mega menus so that you can easily organize your navigation and add as many pages as you want without overwhelming your visitors. On top of that, the theme has been optimized to load fast and is fully responsive. You can install demo content with a single click and you can refer to help documentation, forum, and video tutorials if you need help setting it up. What makes the Neve theme stand out from other free themes is the fact that on top of support documentation, you can also get support from the authors as well. All things considered, the Neve theme is definitely worth checking out if you want a fast, clean, easy-to-use theme that was also optimized for the search engines.
4. Zakra
The Zakra theme is a stylish, modern, and responsive theme that can be used for multiple industries. The theme comes with several demos that range from business to e-commerce demos. You can also use Zakra to create a personal or corporate blog. The theme is very flexible and includes a gorgeous header area where you can add a background image along with a call to action that directs your visitors to your most important page.
There is also plenty of space to feature what your business has to offer as well as the ability to showcase team members, testimonials, client logos, and stylish counters. The Zakra theme comes with support for the Elementor page builder plugin and the Gutenberg editor. On top of that, it’s GDPR-ready and can be easily customized. You can set a custom brand color as well as choose between several different header styles. Other customization options include seven widget areas, general layout options, and plenty of typography options.
The Zakra theme is optimized for SEO, which will help you rank better in the search engines, loads fast, and includes demo content so that you can speed up the design and setup process.
5. GeneratePress
The reviews are in and users and bloggers around the internet are saying that GeneratePress is an outstanding theme, especially when being used with drag and drop editors such as Elementor. It’s simple, sleek, and modern, allowing for just about any skill level to jump right in and start customizing. The great news about GeneratePress is that any beginner could install the theme and start blogging within minutes. As for more advanced developers, it’s a fast, lightweight, and highly customizable free WordPress theme. Not only that, but a premium version is sold for a reasonable price, which includes everything from beautiful typography to WooCommerce support, and sections to advanced menus.
But this is mainly about the free version of the GeneratePress WordPress theme. As mentioned, it’s a lightweight theme (at less than 1MB zipped). This is impressive for any theme, and it comes into play when you’re trying to make your blog super fast. In addition, the GeneratePress theme has clean coding following the WordPress coding standards. Therefore, it’s compatible with all well-coded plugins, decreasing problems in the long run. The theme can be translated into over 20 languages, and it features nine widget areas for getting creative. You’ll also find five menu navigation spots, drop-down menus, and several sidebar layouts.
6. Astra
Astra is a multipurpose WordPress theme that rose in popularity quickly and continues to dominate sales. It’s so appealing because it lives up to the hype. It’s fast and extremely customizable. This theme is robust and comes with several pre-built websites that you can select and launch fast. You can customize it without having to touch a line of code. Plus, you can use it right alongside many page builders.
Some other features of Astra include layout settings, header options, color and typography customization options, and superior performance thanks to it not relying on jQuery and a load time of 0.5 seconds. Something else you should know is the impressive list of integrations available. Astra works with WooCommerce, Beaver Builder, Elementor, Toolset, Yoast, and LearnDash, to name a few. Finally, this theme is accessible, SEO-friendly, uses hooks and filters, is translation-ready, and offers an extensive knowledge base for getting started.
7. OceanWP
If you’re searching for a lightweight and extendable theme, OceanWP is worth a look.
This multipurpose theme is compatible with popular page builder plugins, including Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Divi. Thanks to its extendable codebase, OceanWP is an excellent tool if you’re a developer planning to add your own customizations. It also includes built-in SEO features to help you optimize your site with ease.
Although this theme is free, there are also plenty of premium add-ons to choose from. This includes extensions for custom page layouts, full-screen rolling, and pop-ups.
OceanWP is also a solid choice if you’re looking to create a multipurpose site. For example, it also lets you easily create a blog, ‘about us’ page, portfolio, shop, and more.
8. Inspiro
If you want your website to feature a lot of high-quality visual content, it’s smart to choose a theme that is photo- or video-centric, such as Inspiro.
This lightweight, freemium theme showcases a stunning modern design that is packed with visual features. That includes a full-screen area with support for YouTube and Vimeo, integration with popular page builders, and a video and photography portfolio. It also offers a slideshow with a video background, a theme options panel, and a gallery module.
Inspiro is flexible enough to work with many kinds of online businesses. For example, if you’re a photographer and want to sell your work, this theme could help you stand out from the competition.
9. Ashe
The Ashe WordPress theme is a solid theme choice for many different types of blogs. It could be utilized for fashion, photography, health, food, baking, travel, beauty, personal, and many more niche blog categories. Why is it so versatile, you may be wondering? Quite simply, its minimal style is elegant and refined, making it a go-to choice for those who want to make it so their content stands on its own two feet.
Some features include a mobile-friendly design, WooCommerce support and good documentation. It’s also designed to be fast and works well with many other popular plugins. It’s translation-ready, RTL-ready, SEO-friendly, and makes customization easy. A few things you can modify include the logo, header image, fullscreen slider, Instagram slider, footer menus, and a lot more. Plus, it’s compatible with most drag-and-drop page builders including Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, Elementor, Divi, SiteOrigin, and others.
10. Hestia
When looking at free themes it helps to mark down all of the features you would expect from a premium solution. In the case of Hestia, the premium features are rather impressive. Yet, you don’t have to pay anything to download Hestia and launch it on your WordPress site. Starting off, the theme has a simple, material design for quick setups and beautiful user interactions. The responsive layout looks wonderful on all mobile devices, and the multi-purpose functionality ensures that all sorts of businesses can take advantage of it. I would recommend the theme to startups and small businesses, as it provides a beautiful slider area for your promotions and explaining what your business is all about. In addition, you can talk about your employees and testimonials for a more personable feel.
The main reason you might go with the Hestia WordPress theme is because of the WooCommerce integration. This brings up elegant and intriguing product listings, with a focus on galleries. The drag and drop content builder is designed for developers of all experience levels. Obviously, beginners don’t want to work with code, and advanced designers want to speed up their process. Some translation tools are included with the theme, and you get custom background settings for branding your site with your own pictures. The one-click install is a bonus, and the mega menus serve as wonderful tools for sending people to hundreds of other pages on your site.
11. PhotoFocus
If you’re looking for a theme built around visuals, PhotoFocus is a top contender. This free, multipurpose photography theme can make your WordPress site look beautiful and elegant.
Although it’s intended specifically for photographers, PhotoFocus is flexible enough to work with other types of websites, such as business sites and blogs. It comes with a user-friendly interface and clean navigation. It also includes various layout options, a featured slider and featured content area, header media, and more.
PhotoFocus may not be the best choice if you sell physical products. However, it’s worth a look if you work in a creative field and want an impressive way to showcase your work.
12. Cenote
If you want to present your blog to the world in a clean and compelling way, you won’t be able to pass up the Cenote WordPress theme. This free offering is designed specifically with blogs in mind and is quite easy to use as well. Setup is a cinch and it comes with several features that make the art of blogging just a little bit easier.
This theme comes with a variety of demos that you can use for a multitude of different blog styles, including food, travel, business, fashion, and more. This makes it even more straightforward to get your blog up and running. Simply select a demo, import it, customize its presentation, then add your content. That’s really all there is to it.
13. Vantage
Vantage looks great for any type of business, particularly in the tech market. Not to mention, it’s completely free! To start, Vantage provides a responsive layout for people who want to view your site while on the go. Also, it integrates rather well with some of the more popular WordPress plugins such as PageBuilder and WooCommerce. The WooCommerce integration is actually one of the best features since you can start selling items on your website without any problems.
Many people use the free theme to build a portfolio as it supports high-resolution images and you can create a filterable grid with thumbnails and links to some of your best work. Not to mention, the custom background and custom menu allow for brilliant branding opportunities, while the threaded comments assist in building a community where people can chat with you and other followers.
14. Page Builder Framework
To run a successful online business, you’ll need a robust theme to power your website. Fortunately, Page Builder Framework can get the job done.
This modern theme boasts a minimalistic design that is both fast and easy to customize. It is designed specifically to work with popular page builder plugins such as Elementor and Beaver Builder, making it quick and easy to create the website of your dreams.
Page Builder Framework is very lightweight, flexible, and WooCommerce-ready. It also offers a premium add-on that includes features such as sticky navigation, transparent headers, white-label settings, and advanced typography.
Regardless of your industry, Page Builder is an impressive theme that is worth considering.
15. ColorMag
As you’ll see based on the significant number of high rankings, the ColorMag theme is rather popular. Why is this the case? To start, it is pretty much the ultimate solution for making a beautiful magazine website. It’s filled with spots to list your own ads, giving you possibilities for making money for your efforts. In addition, you’ll gain access to various social media buttons, which is rarely the case with free themes. Therefore, your magazine followers have a chance to follow you on places like Facebook and Twitter.
You’ll notice that the majority of the homepage is built with widgets, enabling those with some WordPress experience to quickly move around and manage website elements. So, if you’d like to place a gallery or recent post list on your homepage, it wouldn’t take long to do so.
Along with custom colors and headers, the ColorMag theme integrates with just about any plugin you can imagine. So if you’d like to install something like the WooCommerce plugin you wouldn’t have any problem implementing an online store. For example, you could upload a decent number of products and collect money with a quick payment processor integration.
Overall, the functionality of the ColorMag WordPress theme is fairly basic. You shouldn’t have any problems if you’re not an experienced developer, but more advanced designers will still find it pretty impressive. The simple backend is useful for developers, and you shouldn’t have trouble managing multiple authors who write for your magazine.