The best WordPress themes: free and premium

WordPress is by far the most popular content man­age­ment system (CMS) in the world. A large part of its pop­u­lar­i­ty has to do with the many different designs it offers, also called themes or templates. With a WordPress-Theme, you can com­plete­ly change the design of your website with just a few clicks. The numerous WordPress themes differ not only in design but are also suitable for different web projects.

The best WordPress templates at a glance

This article was last updated in February 2025.

Best free WordPress themes in detail

WordPress is not only the most popular CMS but also one of the best-known open-source projects. The community supports the system with self-created WordPress plugins (i.e., function ex­ten­sions) and themes. These design templates, also known as WordPress templates, range from min­i­mal­ist landing pages to extensive web presences.

You can download all the free WordPress themes from WordPress.org or through the dashboard of your website.

Hello Elementor

If you’re looking for a simple theme that’s easy to use, Hel­loEle­men­tor is a great solution. The popular template has been down­loaded over a million times, has a light­weight design and provides both good per­for­mance and an un­clut­tered look for blogs and smaller websites. The theme is designed to work in con­junc­tion with Elementor Page Builder. This is a plugin that provides you with an al­ter­na­tive editor that allows you to change the look of the website using drag & drop.

Features:

• simple, elegant design
• fast speed
• optimized for Elementor Page Builder

Gen­er­atePress

Gen­er­atePress can also be used with the Elementor Page Builder, but it is also com­pat­i­ble with other editors. This WordPress theme focuses on pre­sent­ing your content to readers as elegantly and quickly as possible. Similar to other themes in this list, the Gen­er­atePress team places great im­por­tance on a small file size, leading to high loading speeds. In addition to the free theme, there’s also a premium version with ad­di­tion­al features available on the official website.

Features:

• high per­for­mance
• com­pat­i­ble with many page builders
• cus­tomiz­able – also suitable for online stores

Astra

E-commerce has its own demands on website design. The WordPress theme Astra addresses the chal­lenges of online stores with in­ter­est­ing ideas: primarily, the template is built to be very light­weight. This ensures the fast browsing ex­pe­ri­ence that customers desire when shopping online. With its high per­for­mance and other elements, the theme also supports you in search engine op­ti­miza­tion (SEO). The template is rounded out by numerous cus­tomiza­tion options. With this theme, you can create not only powerful web stores but also blogs or other small projects.

Features:

• optimized for com­bi­na­tion with WooCom­merce
• min­i­mal­ist & fast
• search engine optimized
• premium add-ons available

Store­front

Another theme to help your e-commerce business take off is Store­front. It is es­pe­cial­ly popular among users of WooCom­merce, the com­pre­hen­sive online store extension for WordPress. It’s not sur­pris­ing though, since it was developed by the WooCom­merce team. All the features of the store plugin and its many add-ons can be im­ple­ment­ed with this WordPress template. Besides the product pages, you can of course also create about us page and other useful subpages with Store­front.

Features:

• specif­i­cal­ly developed for WooCom­merce
• com­bin­able with add-ons
• various cus­tomiza­tion options

Inspiro

With Inspiro, you can create websites that showcase both images and — this is what makes this template special — videos very well. You can play videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or from your own server. In principle, this can also be done in other themes by in­te­grat­ing them with the Gutenberg editor, but Inspiro displays videos in a nicer layout on your website. Video back­grounds can be easily in­te­grat­ed, for example in headers or Footer. The man­u­fac­tur­er WPZOOM also offers a paid version with greater func­tion­al­i­ty.

Features:

• gallery functions for photos and videos
• various video features
• com­bin­able with WooCom­merce
• own page builder

Colibri WP

With Colibri WP by Extend Themes, you can also add video back­grounds to your website. But the WordPress template offers even more in­ter­est­ing features: It comes with different design elements and over 35 pre-made content blocks. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, you can create your own blocks by simply dragging and dropping various objects together. This es­sen­tial­ly turns the theme into a page builder.

Features:

• many templates
• video back­grounds
• page builder

OceanWP

The free WordPress theme OceanWP is par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­tin­guished by its high adapt­abil­i­ty. Whether you want to create a simple blog, a com­pelling business website, or a feature-rich online store, OceanWP can bring any web project to life. You can work with different page builders for this. The de­vel­op­ment team also ensured that the theme is prepared for search engine op­ti­miza­tion.

Features:

• adaptable to different projects
• works with many page builders
• prepared for search engine op­ti­miza­tion

Premium WordPress themes in detail

Es­pe­cial­ly for beginners in the WordPress field, free themes are a great way to quickly kickstart on the web. However, for long-term and pro­fes­sion­al projects, it’s worth looking towards paid themes. These are usually created by design agencies and have a unique look that will def­i­nite­ly make your web presence stand out on the internet.

Kayn

Artists, pho­tog­ra­phers, and media designers es­pe­cial­ly will find in Kayn a theme that high­lights their own works ef­fec­tive­ly. The min­i­mal­ist design doesn’t distract from the actual content of the website but enhances every portfolio. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the theme impresses with dynamic nav­i­ga­tion elements, search engine op­ti­miza­tion features, and many design options. Thanks to a 30-day money-back guarantee, the theme can be tested risk-free.

Features:

• perfect for port­fo­lios
• elegant design
• search engine op­ti­miza­tion
• pro­fes­sion­al web design elements
• large color selection and many fonts included

Price: $ / one-off payment

Zuki

Most blogs have a clear but somewhat unin­spired structure. The WordPress theme Zuki from El­mas­tu­dio offers a more in­ter­est­ing pre­sen­ta­tion style. Like in a magazine, articles are arranged above and next to each other, giving the blog a more dynamic look. You can customize each post in­di­vid­u­al­ly and easily add elements like quotes with the in-house widget and text boxes. This makes the theme suitable for both pas­sion­ate hobby bloggers and pro­fes­sion­al editors.

Features:

• magazine design
• options to customize posts
• own widget for quotes

Price: $ / one-off payment

EcoCoded

Running servers un­der­stand­ably costs energy—es­pe­cial­ly when hosting complex ap­pli­ca­tions. The team at Su­perbThemes aims to address this with EcoCoded: The theme’s source code is so ef­fi­cient­ly built that barely any server pro­cess­ing power is needed. The stream­lined WordPress template is also available for free, but it is only in the premium version that you get features like search engine op­ti­miza­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, you can only customize each design element in this version of the theme.

Features:

• resource-efficient source code
• fast loading times
• search engine op­ti­miza­tion
• highly adaptable

Price: $$ / one-off or annual payment

Eimear

With the Eimear theme from WebMan Design, you can give your online store a very modern and in­ter­est­ing design. Set how many products should be placed next to each other and in what alignment. A par­tic­u­lar­ly nice idea is that with this theme, you don’t have to use only rec­tan­gu­lar thumb­nails. The design template includes a mask for the small preview images, which livens up the ap­pear­ance of overview pages. The developer of the WordPress theme places special emphasis on ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty. The theme is therefore fully aligned with WCAG 2.1.

Features:

• developed for e-commerce
• com­pat­i­ble with WooCom­merce
• lively look
• special thumb­nails
• ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty

Price: $$ / one-time payment

Foodica

Foodica is primarily aimed at website operators who engage with the topic of food in all its facets: Large-format images with slider functions display dishes and foods in an ap­pe­tiz­ing way. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there are many different display options and color schemes. Since bloggers typically rely on ad revenue, Foodica already includes preset place­hold­ers for ads. The theme also includes a small web store where items like mer­chan­dise can be sold.

Features:

• enhanced image display
• many cus­tomiza­tion options
• place­hold­ers for ads
• in­te­grat­ed online store

Price: $$$ / one-off or annual payment

Divi

If you choose the highly popular premium theme Divi, you’ll get a small website builder. You can move elements via drag-and-drop and adjust the entire ap­pear­ance with just a few clicks—without having to master CSS. If you want to create new pages, you can choose from several templates and easily tailor them to your pref­er­ences. Divi works perfectly with WooCom­merce and also includes various marketing features. Split testing, for example, which allows you to compare the ef­fec­tive­ness of different designs, is par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ing.

Features:

• website builder
• multiple page templates
• marketing functions
• com­pat­i­ble with WooCom­merce

Price: $$$ / one-off or annual payment