Choose A New WordPress Theme
Choosing the right free WordPress theme early on can save you a lot of time later on. Starting with a free WordPress theme also gives you the opportunity to try a few out with no monetary risk.
All of the themes below are highly customizable and can be used for many different types of websites.
Let’s get started and see what themes are out there.
Astra
Astra supports Gutenberg, Elementor, Brizy, and Beaver builder for web page building. Astra was one of the first themes to integrate with Gutenberg and now has one of the most extensive sets of starter templates.
Astra is a mobile-friendly WordPress theme that is fast loading and highly customizable.
The Free version offers more options than most bloggers will ever need.
- Pros
- Choice of Popular Page-builders
- Fast Loading
- Simple to Customize
- Cons
- Header Layouts are more limited than some
Kadence
Kadence is one of the most popular free WordPress themes available and is the theme that this website uses. Kadence is extremely easy to customize.
The Kadence Block extension will allow you to make nearly any type of website.
- Pros:
- Compatible with the Gutenberg block editor
- Integrates with major page builders
- Great Selection of Starter Sites
- Highly Customizable
- Very fast and lightweight
- Cons:
- None really, no full site editing
Neve
Neve is another WordPress theme that offers a choice of multiple page-builders. Highly customizable allowing the option to use this theme for all types of websites.
Starter site options are good, but many are for the premium version.
The blog design options are good straight out of the box, great for beginners.
- Pros:
- Highly Customizable
- Multiple page-builders
- Cons:
- Many Starter sites are Premium only
GeneratePress
Create your content with some of the popular page-builders, like Beaver Builder, Elementor, or Gutenberg.
With a minimal page size, GeneratePress is another fast and responsive WordPress theme.
Designing with Dynamic Block Elements allows you to customize your website however you want.
- Pros:
- Compatible with the Gutenberg block editor
- Integrates with major page builders
- Small Page size
- Cons:
- Amp incompatability
OceanWP
OceanWP is a multi-purpose WordPress theme that integrates work well with WooCommerce. The WooCommerce integration features a floating cart bar and cart popup.
Most customizations are pretty standard, but the header has seven different styles and three sections.
- Pros:
- Fully Responsive
- Free
- Multipurpose
- Multiple Page-Builders
- Cons:
- Needs tweaking for maximum speed
- Customizer is quirky
Blocksy
Blocksy theme has a reasonable amount of starter sites, the starter sites themselves are fairly nondescript.
All of the major page-builders can be used to build your pages and posts.
Customization is good and the free version has more than enough features for most users.
Speed is reasonable but in my experience not as good as Kadence or Astra.
- Pros:
- Compatible with all major page-builders
- Header and Footer customizer
- Cons:
- Limited number of starter sites, but it is improving
- Not as fast loading as some themes
Hestia
Hestia is marketed as a one-page WordPress theme but it can be used like any other theme. A one-page website has all the content on a single page. Hestia can easily be customized to have many linked pages like any other.
The text customizing is troublesome, it uses a slider system to adjust sizes rather standard sizes, such as pixels or ems.
Hestia is a good theme but it is hard to recommend over some of the other options further up the list.
- Pros:
- All major page-builders supported
- Cons:
- Not the quickest theme
- Customizing text size is awkward.
In Conclusion: WordPress Theme Choices
If you are going to try some of the themes on the list then l would recommend that you try them on an empty subdomain or staging site. It is doubly important if you are not using the Gutenberg block builder. Gutenberg blocks are generally interchangeable between themes but changing page-builders will often break your website.
