In this post, I want to show you my favorite WordPress themes and templates. As you will probably quickly notice, I use premium themes templates, these aren’t free but save you a lot of time.
Often you have special requirements or functionalities in mind, so starting with free themes doesn’t make sense. Because many free themes are just slimmed down versions of the respective premium variant, or only basic features without special templates and content elements are supported.
All themes presented here are Gutenberg ready. Some have made special efforts to integrate on a deeper level with the new editor or one of the many other visual editors for WordPress. If this is the case, you’ll find that information in the description of each theme.
But now without further ado: This is the list of the absolute best WordPress themes from my point of view! My 3 WordPress Theme recommendations in 2024:
Divi Theme
The Divi Theme is a very cool, modern and flexible WordPress theme with which you can realize just about any site. It has its own integrated page build.
This gives you full control over your entire website, without any programming knowledge. Divi offers countless ready-made templates for virtually every page type and content type, allowing you to get started and go live right away.
The built-in Theme Builder takes the familiar features of the Divi Builder and extends it to all areas of the theme, so you can now use it to create custom headers and footers, category pages, product templates, blog posts, 404 pages and so on.
I think Divi is especially suitable for users who don’t want to do their own programming, but still want to fully influence the design of their WordPress site.
I find the pricing model of Elegant Themes, the makers of the Divi theme, very fair. If you pay $249 once, you can use all themes and plugins incl. widgets for lifetime and for unlimited websites and even for customer projects. Alternatively, you can pay $89 annually for updates and excellent support.
In terms of speed you can do very well with Divi if you pay attention to a few things like critical CSS, caching, deferred JavaScript, reasonable image compression and in the best case scenario you also have WP Rocket. But the most important thing is the correct hosting.
Also included in the price are the two excellent plugins Bloom and Monarch. Bloom is an email opt-in plugin, so it’s designed to add very high-conversion newsletter forms to the website. Monarch is a very comprehensive and powerful social media sharing plugin.
If you want to read more about the Divi theme, you can do it here.
Neve
Many WordPress themes have become insanely cluttered and complex to use with more and more features. This makes many WordPress sites slow and cumbersome. But no more of that: the Neve Theme is designed for maximum speed in the new WordPress era. Thanks to Gutenberg Blocks and the possibilities of the integrated WordPress Customizer, Neve is as powerful as classic multipurpose themes with Page Builder.
Of course, you don’t have to sacrifice a stylish website and even WooCommerce is fully supported by Neve. You can also easily create headers and footers, drag and drop them to customize them, and choose from a variety of layout options.
If you want to work with a PageBuilder, or convert your existing website to the Neve theme, you can easily use Neve with Elementor, Brizy, Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin, Gutenberg and Divi Builder.
In addition, there are over 80 pre-built pages that you can import with one click. More are added every month. The library of Neve starter themes allows you to import a ready-made website in no time and then easily customize it with your images and content.
Astra Theme
By now, over 1.6 million users have already installed the theme! The Astra theme has achieved an insanely impressive growth. It is now in the league of the three most used themes in the world, where only the WordPress default themes Twenty Twenty and Twenty Seventeen are. Even Twenty Nineteen doesn’t have that many installations!
Astra is not only the most popular WordPress theme ever, but also one of the fastest and most flexible WordPress themes.
There are countless pre-made websites that you can easily import after installation and then customize with changes to suit your needs.
By the way, Astra is one of the few themes that manages completely without jQuery, which makes the pages really fast. Loading times of half a second are really possible with a fast hosting.
Just released the latest version of Astra 3.0 with a completely new visual header and footer builder and massive performance improvements, both in the frontend and in the backend when working with the customizer. This puts Astra in the league of the fastest themes ever:
Free WordPress Themes
Free WordPress themes are a dime a dozen. Many of them can be found in the official theme directory on WordPress.org. However, there are very often only slimmed down ‘light’ versions of paid themes, where you get only a limited basic functionality for free. If you have the choice and want to give your site an individual and professional look, I think you should rather spend a little money for a very good premium theme.
Other top WordPress Themes worth mentioning
- Oxygen
- GeneratePress
- Bricks
How to find the right WordPress Theme?
If you have the desire, time and the possibility to create the pages according to your ideas with a very flexible theme like Divi.
Frequently asked questions about the best WordPress Themes
Is WordPress free of charge?
Yes, the CMS WordPress is basically free of charge. The inventor of WordPress decided back then to release the software under the GNU Public License (also called GPL). However, there are many themes and plugins that are not free.
What are the best WordPress themes?
Three of the best WordPress themes on the market are:
1. Divi, a very popular theme.
2. Neve, with its lightweight design.
3. Astra Theme, for its extensive customization options.
