Attractive themes are pleasing to the eyes. A well-spread layout is something every business secretly desires for its website.
Whether you are a blogger, an eCommerce venture, a health care provider, a leading magazine, or an online newspaper – all you require is suitable and best free WordPress themes that specify your genre and looks stunning online.
A fast, good-looking theme also has a significant impact on your business recognition by clearly displaying the images, content, and videos while being highly responsive.
Although a paid WordPress theme seems to be the best choice for a well-designed professional website, ‘free’ themes are still good to begin with.
What to look in WordPress theme?
Before jumping straight to the list, here’s what to look for in your WordPress theme:
Speed
A WordPress theme should be blazing fast. In other words, your theme should be highly responsive. Any theme that smoothly adjusts its layout and content presentation on different screen sizes and resolutions can be considered a fast and highly responsive theme.
Visibility, compatibility, or usability should never be an issue with a responsive theme.
Size
Believe it or not, size matters! A lightweight website loads many times faster than a heavy one.
Also, heavy themes consume much space thus create problems with the website and increase ‘page load time’. This ultimately affects your Google rankings too.
Features
Every theme has some of its default features. Do choose a theme that’s feature-rich, ahead of time.
It means the theme must have a big slider, social icons, footer widgets, fonts family, and other mandatory features as per your business type.
Customization Options
Customization is imperative to stay on the unique side. You don’t want your site to look similar to hundreds of websites out there which are using the same free theme.
It’s better to choose a theme that’s highly (if not fully) customizable. You must be able to change the background, color, logo, header, and menu, etc. as per your choice and needs.
Regular Updates
Just like a plugin, a good theme should also be updated from time to time. It is vital for a secure and speedy WordPress website. So, look for a theme that offers regular updates. Also, check for the performance of the theme and ensure that it fits WordPress & Google standards.
Best Free WordPress themes
There are hundreds of thousands of themes out there for all sorts of businesses including eCommerce and service-based companies.
From all those myriads of themes, we have shortlisted the ten best free WordPress themes for you.
1. Sydney
No, we are not talking about the capital of New South Wales. Sydney is the name of one of the best free WordPress themes for business.
If you’re someone seeking a professional-looking ‘free’ theme for your business, Sydney is the theme to go with.
The Good
- The customization choices are fairly extensive; with alternatives for logo transfers and more than 600 Google Fonts, it has left the world amazed.
- The full-screen slider works pleasantly for the individuals who need to flaunt expansive pictures or promotional banners on their homepage, while the full color-control offers a definitive branding option.
- The Call To Action button at the center makes it even more appealing and outlines a clean interface.
- Sydney is a responsive theme even for the businesses or individuals who have a large audience that uses the cell phones.
- Its sticky navigation enables individuals to travel through your site and see everything in a crisp and clear manner.
- Also, the theme allows you to adjust your typography as you like it; it also has social icons allowing you to get social exposure.
The Bad
- The only cons that this theme has is it has a single page template. You can also be disappointed with the limited layout choices.
The Highlights
- Full-screen slider
- Parallax background
- 600+ Google Fonts
- Highly responsive
Best suited for: Businesses
2. Great Mag
Thinking of creating an online magazine? Think of GreatMag!
This cool theme is so beautifully presented that instantly grabs one’s attention. If you wish to flaunt your posts with colorful pictures as a grid or just randomly scattered on the homepage, GreatMag helps you easily do it.
The Good
- It’s a visually-focused theme, this means if you have great pictures to show, you can win the game with this best free WordPress theme.
- The theme is greatly responsive and bundled with widgets to nicely organize articles on your website.
- GreatMag stays the best choice even if your target audience is from other parts of the globe. Why? Because the theme has translation ready elements to create posts in different languages so that the readers from different parts of the world can understand it and gel with it.
- Also, there is a Latest News ticker just above the header that can instantly grab the eyes of your readers and prompt them to view the trending hot topic buzzing around.
The Bad
- There is no screen-length slider or image place. So, if you desire of a magazine website with a full-screen image, you’ll be.
The Highlights
- Visually focused
- Translation ready
- Latest News-ticker
- Social media buttons
- Filled with widgets
Best suited for: Online Magazines
3. ShopIsle
Our list of best free WordPress themes can’t be completed without mentioning ShopIsle. It’s a classic theme for budding eCommerce platforms.
If you wish to make money through eCommerce while sitting back at home, choose ShopIsle to design a killing WooCommerce website and kickstart your business.
The Good
- With ShopIsle you get a full-screen slider with a clean, well-organized design.
- Every page of the theme looks super fresh and spacious.
- It’s WooCommerce ready, so if you customize it properly and make the best use of it, you will end up having a professional, modern and user-friendly eCommerce website.
- Combine this theme with a good ‘managed web hosting’ for a lighting fast WooCommerce website.
The Bad
- The inside templates of the theme don’t allow much control. However, you get more control and nice features on the homepage.
The Highlights
- Social links
- Video ribbons
- Widgetized footer
- Responsive & clean
- WooCommerce ready
Best suited for: eCommerce
4. Easy Commerce
Just like ShopIsle, Easy Commerce is also an attractive ‘free’ theme for WooCommerce ventures. It’s an awesome fully coded and a feature-rich theme.
The Good
- Easy commerce is highly responsive and looks stunning on all sorts of devices.
- It’s a clean and attractive theme that has several theme options, featured slider and footer widgets for you.
- It offers WooCommerce plugin; it means you can easily browse your product catalogs with an effortless, graceful manner. Also, the buyers can easily add items to your shopping carts, and proceed to checkout.
The Bad
- The downside of the theme, when compared to ShopIsle, is that it lacks the sidebar choices, color options, and font family options. Also, with its free version you don’t get customizable footer and menu settings; author bio is absent too.
The Highlights
- 4 custom widgets
- Sidebar layout options
- Custom menu
- Theme options
- WooCommerce Plugin
5. Sold
Want an elegant design with an intuitive interface for your eCommerce platform? Then ‘Sold’ is the gold for you!
The Good
- This free WordPress theme works great for all kinds of eCommerce businesses even if they are non-techie users or don’t have any coding knowledge. It has a full page slider and multiple social icons at the bottom.
- Sold is a mobile friendly theme that smoothly works on all browsers including Chrome, Firefox, and Safari etc.
The Bad
- No sidebar available. The theme has a single page with the single scroll as the homepage.
The Highlights
- Responsive Slider
- SEO Optimized
- Valid XHTML + CSS
- Theme Options
- eCommerce ready
6. Oblique
Are you an aspiring photographer who has done a photography course and now wants to dig deeper into this profession?
If you nodded for ‘yes’, you must first make a professional photography website and showcase your skills and work portfolio to get started.
You can do it simply by choosing a free theme called ‘Oblique’ build especially for photographers, fashion aficionados, and models.
The Good
- Oblique has a masonry layout that looks elegant.
- It is one of those free responsive WordPress themes 2018 that also offers a custom slide-out left menu that also has the sidebar and the search bar.
- This theme has a nice, responsive design, simple code, a parallax header, and Google fonts. It’s translation and widget ready.
- Moreover, you can customize the background and color as per your choice. With Oblique, you get a nice canvas to flaunt your clicks and make a well-organized website.
The Bad
- With a lot of pros, this theme has some cons too. It has a fixed header.
- Also, there is no sidebar which is the real drawback.
The Highlights
- Slide-out left menu
- Unlimited colors
- Custom background
- Translation ready
Best suited for: Fashion and photography blogs
7. OnePress
OnePress is a great free theme to make a single page site, an attractive landing page or run a campaign.
The Good
- This theme is fit for all sorts of businesses out there, it has a layout and options that set the standard for professional commercial ventures.
- If you think it’s not good for the business purpose, let me tell you that it’s proved as one of the most successful WordPress themes for business.
- This one-page theme has everything you would need such as a slider, HD imagery, over-laying buttons and responsive design, you name it.
The Bad
- It’s a one-page theme that has a long scroll. Although that’s fine, it can be a bit distracting and boring for some users.
- It lacks the testimonial section and clients section that’s quite necessary for any business today.
The Highlights
- WooCommerce options
- Icons and columns
- Latest News module
- Parallax effect
Best suited for: Businesses
8. Spacious
As its name tells it all; Spacious is a free WordPress theme by ThemeGrill that has a clean design and a classy layout that looks spacious.
Although it’s a great multipurpose choice for businesses and eCommerce, it’s considered as the best WordPress themes for blogs as you don’t want a too complex design or a clumsy layout for a simple blog.
The Good
- Spacious is one of the most highly rated WordPress theme with 65,000+ active installs.
- If customization is all that you want from your free WP theme, Spacious is the theme to go with. It gives you great control over the website customization and provides you with plenty of options. They include the built-in slider, page design customization, color options, blog posts display types and 5 custom widgets.
The Bad
- You can’t find the social icons on the theme.
- The video section is also missing that can be a problem for the people who wish to display a showreel.
The Highlights
- 13 widget areas
- Flexible page layout options
- Highly rated theme
- SEO friendly
- Live Customizer
9. Astra
One of the best themes to check out this year is ‘Astra’. This is a new and tempting multipurpose theme that is highly responsive, customizable, and swift.
Because it’s a multipurpose theme, you can choose it and use it for any purpose you want.
Run a blog, make it into a company website, turn it into an eCommerce platform or do anything else.
Most of the users rate it 95% efficient. Its Pro version is also available to switch to it anytime you want so as to enjoy tons of more features.
The Good
- It’s super light weight makes it lightning fast and responsive.
- It’s compatible with the page builders going hand in hand with elementor, divi builder, and beaver builder etc.
- If you are a developer who wants a theme that fits your skills and needs, Astra is again a great option as it has got some really cool hooks and filters to amaze you.
- Last but not the least it’s an SEO friendly theme that is a treat for eyes at the same time.
The Bad
- There are not many flaws to highlight. It’s a new, amazing them which offers everything that you need in a free WordPress theme!
The Highlights
- Speed (loads in 0.5 seconds)
- Lightweight (needs only 50Kb)
- Easy Vanilla JavaScript
- Compatible with all Page Builders
- Open Source, 100% GPL
10. Olsen Light
This is my most favorite and one of the best free WordPress themes having the capability to amaze you with its feel and features. Olsen Light is much closer to a premium theme due to its branding elements and handy widgets.
The Good
- Simple backend and frontend interfaces are something that every blogger wants, Olsen Lights gives you exactly that.
- Also, there is a fully customizable menubar, an author box where you can write about you and highlight your skills, social icons to connect to the world and gain more followers, more white space every here and here to make the theme look classy, clean and elegant.
The Bad
- As the theme features and focuses more on pictures, you need to have high-quality display images on the homepage to attract more eyes.
- Olsen Light cannot work for you if you have poor picture quality.
- There are limited footer widget options.
The Highlights
- Beautiful featured imagery
- Author Box
- Translation ready interface
- Responsive layout
- Color tools
Other Cool Themes To Choose
Other best free WordPress themes that are fast, beautiful and responsive are:
- Writee
- Hueman
- Sparkling
- Storefront
- Ocean WP
- Hestia
- Page Builder Framework
- Elemento
- Envy blog
- ColorMag
- MH magazine
- Iconic one
All these WordPress themes are available for ‘Free download’.
Want to use a Heavy Theme for your business?
No problem.
Breeze is still there to manage your heavy website. Our Managed WordPress Hosting can help you with 100% uptime, improved performance, and fast page load speed no matter what WordPress theme you choose.
