10 Most Popular and Best Free WordPress Themes in 2021

If you’d like to get yourself a fresh and beautiful theme for 2021, then this roundup is for you! These are the most popular and best free WordPress themes in the market. And we really do mean it! 🤩

The remaining themes we installed on a test site, added some demo content and tested the performance via Pingdom Tools. Everything with “less than stellar” results got scratched from the list.

What we ended up with – and what you can see in the following list – are only the very best free WordPress themes in the market (ordered by popularity).

👉 Shortcut: see our top 3 theme recommendations here

These are the top 10 most popular and best free WordPress themes you can get in 2021:

10 best free WordPress themes for 2021

Twenty Seventeen

Oh yes, indeed. Sorry if this seems obvious, but Twenty Seventeen really has proven to stand the test of time. It’s the default WordPress theme from “two themes ago,” but it’s still quite appreciated by the WordPress community, being the most popular default theme to date.

What we like particularly about this theme is that it delivers a simple presentation, while also letting you implement some basic branding via the header image. The typography is very good, too, making it an excellent theme for a simple blog or a business project.

Astra

Astra is one of the most popular and also one of the fastest-growing WordPress themes of today.

What sets it apart is that it’s a performance-oriented minimal theme that only gives you very basic features out the box, albeit in a very functional wrapper. You can pick which modules you need and activate/deactivate them accordingly.

Another advantage of Astra’s is that it’s compatible with the most popular page builders in the market (Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy). There are also starter sites available for each of the builders. All this means that you can build a website with Astra quickly, and then also customize it to fit your needs 100%. However, the out-the-box design of the theme isn’t much until you import a starter site on top of it.

OceanWP

OceanWP is in many ways similar to Astra – the way the theme delivers its features is similar, and the focus on minimalism and performance is also similar.

You use this theme by selecting which features you need and then fine-tune the individual aspects of your site. The degree of possible customization is also similar to that of Astra’s.

Above that, OceanWP is very good when it comes to eCommerce-related features and settings. You can look into this if you’re planning to launch a WooCommerce store.

The theme is also compatible with page builder plugins. However, again, the out-the-box design doesn’t look like much.

Storefront

This is the official WooCommerce theme. It comes with all the basic features and customizations you might need, but not much more than that.

The design is clean and works well with page builders. Also, since this theme is the official WooCommerce theme, you can depend on it working with the platform with no weird glitches.

If you want to build your online store with Storefront, you’ll likely create a child theme to make your customizations, though.

GeneratePress

This is another WordPress theme that’s similar in principle to Astra and OceanWP. Once again, you get an extended customization interface with a lot of dials and knobs.

You can tune up your typography, colors, layout, and other fine details.

However, this theme is a bit more geared toward delivering its most useful features in the pro version. The options available in the free one are a little under par compared to what’s in Astra or OceanWP. And, like with all themes of this kind, the out-the-box design isn’t much.

Sydney

Sydney has been a mainstay in the popular tab of the WordPress.org theme directory for a while now. And it’s not hard to see why. This WordPress theme delivers a modern design that gets updated regularly, and it’s also one of the themes officially recommended by team Elementor.

The structure of the theme is responsive, there’s deep WordPress Customizer integration, Google Fonts, and even custom Elementor blocks.

Overall, this is a good theme for a business website, agency, or professional portfolio.

ColorMag

ColorMag is the only WordPress theme on this list that’s been purpose-built for magazine and news-style sites.

Not only that, but there are also a handful of different layouts and configurations available, so everyone can find something that fits their niche.

The design itself is optimized to handle a big volume of content – multiple posts being published every day. If your site doesn’t produce this much content, however, you might want to consider a different theme.

Feature-wise, the theme is compatible with WooCommerce, gives you good color selection options, has advanced typography, has more than 15 widget areas, and offers many more interesting features under the hood.

Hestia

Slick, clean, and modern – these are the main qualities of Hestia. The theme has been a member of the popular tab at WordPress.org for more than a couple of years. You’ll notice that this is actually a theme of our own. We’re proud that it has stood the test of time and continues to get a steady stream of new downloads every day.

The theme offers users a level of simplicity that’s hard to find in other free themes in the market. There’s full integration with the WordPress Customizer, and you also get a selection of starter sites – those cover different niches and styles of websites.

Hestia was built to work with page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy, Divi Builder, and the new block editor in WordPress.

This theme will work great for a business site, app, online store, or agency.

OnePress

OnePress delivers a fresh, modern spin on flat design principles. It offers good typography, good whitespace use, and makes sure that your content gets the spotlight it deserves.

As the name indicates, this is a “single page” theme. While you can create more sub-pages if you want to, the core of your website structure will revolve around a single, content-rich homepage.

The design is fully responsive, there are custom content blocks to choose from, and you get advanced theme customization options in the WordPress Customizer.

Neve

Neve is a great WordPress theme to try out if you want to get your site online quickly, and use an out-the-box design that you can import with a couple of clicks.

This is the second theme of ours that has made the list, and one of our newest creations. Neve has made its way onto the popular tab at WordPress.org only a couple of months after release, and it has managed to stay there until today.

The design is modern, optimized for mobile devices, loads fast, and doesn’t take a lot of your web server’s resources. It also offers 20+ free starter sites, and even more of them if you decide to upgrade to pro.

While other themes on this list offer starter sites as well, Neve does a better job of inviting the user to pick one right after installing the theme, so you’re not stuck with the site looking unrefined.

How to pick your ideal free WordPress theme?

Hint: you can probably narrow it down to just three

Okay, so we’ve covered ten awesome examples of the best free WordPress themes that the market has to offer, and each of them delivers some cool features, designs, and customization options.

So, how to pick the best one for your site?

For us, it comes down to three scenarios based on your needs and the type of user you are:

Scenario C ✍️ If you just want to launch a basic blog or business site, and don’t care much about design variety, go with the previous default WordPress theme, Twenty Seventeen.

Yes, this still is a great solution for users who value clear and minimal designs.

Got your favorite one among these best free WordPress themes? Share in the comments below.