Best Wordpress Themes

This constantly updated resource lists the web's current best Wordpress themes around. What makes them the best? Usability, look & feel, customization and universality for whatever projects you need to work on! All Wordpress themes displayed below are categorized according to the "niche" they cater to, whether it's a sleek business site, a video-displaying site, a portfolio site, or just about anything else Wordpress can dish out! All themes are sorted by alphabetical order. Enjoy!

• Created to showcase products or properties for sale
• A super-sleek theme that puts everything in just the right spot, try out the demo!
• Front page featured article box dynamically shifts through featured articles
• Thumbnails dedicated to each post through the back-end panel
• Featured video, ad spots, and RSS feed sharing

See a Demo of Agent Theme

• Got a photo or art gallery? Let this be one of your top choices!
• Put your images front-and-center
• Image thumbs make navigation super easy for your visitors
• All images link to their own dedicated page with content that you can add

See A Demo of Wordpress Album Theme

• Made specifically for photo blogs
Minimalist design that draws full attention to your photos!
• Homepage slider, various Javascript effects and more to "jazz" up Wordpress
• Includes 12 color schemes + 7 custom widgets
• Has an automatic image re-sizer
• Everything was coded with SEO in mind

See a Demo of Aperture Theme

• One of the most popular premium Wordpress themes EVER made!
• A full-fledged magazine theme with all the bells and whistles
• Featured articles cycle on the front page, and each post gets its own thumbnail
• Ultimate layout for Adsense and affiliate banner placement

See A Demo of Church Theme

• One sleek & sexy looking Wordpress theme for small businesses
• Minimalist design reduces clutter and draws full attention to your main pages
• Sift through featured articles automatically with a dynamic front page box (see demo)
• Integrate your business intro with your own Youtube videos
• Perfect mix between "static" business statement pages and blog pages
• It's SEO perfection: optimize pages fully with this light-weight theme

See A Demo of Wordpress Corporate Theme

• A mind-blowing theme for gaming websites!
• Compete with the best-designed gaming sites out there, with thumbnailed articles, star ratings, featured dynamic article boxes and tons more (see the demo)
• You won't believe you're actually using Wordpress when you install this theme!

See A Demo of Wordpress eGamer Theme

• A Flash optimized (but still SEO compliant) theme
• Beautiful scrolling front page box gently sifts through all of your chosen featured articles - NICE.
• Soft, subtle and completely web 2.0
• Efficient design makes for a perfect balance of content, advertising and extras

See a Demo of Flash News Theme

• Inspired by CNN.com
• Sifting front page featured article graphics with custom titles that you choose
• Neat, organized boxes for secondary featured articles on the front page
• Multiple page templates & much more

See a Demo of Gazette Edition Theme

• Makes extensive use of custom queries & fields
• Transforms your blog into a full-blown Magazine or news Web site
• Utilizes Blueprint: a CSS framework that streamlines development by utilizing an easy-to-use grid and sensible typography

See a Demo of Gridline Magazine theme

• Yes, Wordpress can become an *awesome* video site with this theme!
• Multiple color schemes included
• Each video gets featured on its own individual page, with content you create
• Includes star ratings & custom widgets for expanded video site features

See a Demo of Groovy Theme

• Mac-style sliding content region
Built in HD video player with full-screen capabilities
A theme settings page with makes every element on the homepage optional and configurable
• Automatic post thumbnails
• Cool Flickr-esque drop down navigation
• Cross-browser compliant
• Five widgetized areas
• Custom fields for multimedia support
• Blueprint CSS, cross-browser compliant, Wordpress 2.6+

See a Demo of High-Def theme

• Available in 4 color schemes & a discounted developer's package
• As web 2.0 as it gets: beautifully designed, and utilizing social web 2.0 services, Flickr, Youtube, AJAX and much more (see the demo for all features)
• Well organized layout for optimal content and advertising performance
• Widget ready
• Completely customizable

See Demo of Omni Theme

• Great choice for a business website theme
• Grid-structure theme with 2 modes: business magazine style or blog style!
• Includes a built-in video aggregator
• Completely widgetized sidebar
• Comes with a host of different color versions (see demo!)

See a Demo of Open Air Theme

• A very professional magazine-style layout WP theme
• Dynamic shuffling featured articles on the front page, dedicated post thumbnails
• Youtube & Feedburner.com integration
• Custom post templates for amazing content & ad space synergy

See A Demo of Lifestyle Wordpress Theme

• Planning on starting an SEO or marketing blog? This is the only theme that matters!
• Designed specifically for Google AdSense & ad placement
• Everything is compact and easy to navigate through


See A Demo of Wordpress Money Blogger Theme

It's the only way (believe me, I've searched for ages) to turn Wordpress into a professional review site for anything you desire: movie reviews, product reviews, service reviews, website reviews, etc! Each review topic (supplied by you or your visitors, if you choose) is presented in an orderly fashion, with 5 star ratings for 4 categories and a full-page section for each, showing all reviews and ratings. Drop in your advertisements to earn money, and you're good to go!

• A truly professional way to turn Wordpress into a community ratings site
• Comes with a plugin AND theme in one package
• Includes bonus affiliate tools
• Free lifetime support & upgrades
• Works on both WP posts and pages!

See a Demo of WP Review Site

• Turn Wordpress into a video site!
• Pull videos from all major video sharing services, or use your own files
• Each video gets its own dedicated page, for content (and SEO!)
• Comes in "dark" (black/gray) and "light" (white) color schemes

See A Demo of Tubular Wordpress Theme

From the creator of the OnDemand Wordpress video theme comes this amazing addition! TV Elements is a dark theme with a heavy emphasis on video showcasing. A front page sifter box scrolls through videos in a queue that you've chosen, complete with a description area for SEO purposes, and a space saving design that makes it easy for readers to bookmark, share and subscribe to your RSS. If you're a digital artist or in the video business, this is perfect for your portfolio website.

• A flash video theme with SEO in mind!
• Sift through featured videos on the front page
• Blog post pages include featured video bar
• The ultimate Wordpress theme for those looking to showcase specific videos!

See a Demo of TV Elements Theme | Multi-Site | Developer Pack

• Got a small business or LLC? Use it for your company site!
• "Sliding" featurette box on home page guides your visitors down a path!
• Comes with 20 (yes, 20) amazing color combos
• Coded to be fast: no junky PHP or CSS here
• Automatic image resizing features
• Buy one, get one free!

See a Demo of Vibrant CMS Theme

• Simple thumbnail format makes browsing videos easy
• Simple back-end thumbnail and video upload means no time wasted with FTP and the manual typing in of video paths!
• Use your own FLV files, or grab videos from Youtube & others
• Plenty of space for putting hand-written content for SEO, and ads

See A Demo of Video Flick Theme

• For those wanting to create a Youtube clone with Wordpress (or close to it!)
• Pull in videos from Youtube, Vimeo, Veoh & many others (or, use your own video files)
• Super SEO-friendly interface puts content in high priority
• Custom widgets included to get the most out of your video exhibition experience (ratings and all)

See a Demo of WooTube Wordpress Theme

• Beautiful, modern theme!
• Perfect layout for a small business site
• 14 sub-page templates, 5 home page layouts and over 20 custom layouts!
• Widget ready
• Coded to be SEO friendly
• The most affordable premium theme of them all

See a Demo of WP-Remix

• Structured to make articles easy to find (and read)
• News, Feature & Preview articles are laid out uniquely on the front page for that real 'magazine theme' feel
• Plenty of room for your ad banners & boxes!

Download Arthemia Theme Here

• Super clean layout - lots of white space
• Optimized for banner & box ads
• Very basic, with a simple look and feel for your readers

Download Blogging Pro Theme here

If you're looking to focus on making Wordpress an image gallery & rating site, this is the theme for you. Check out a demo of it here.

• Clean thumbnail oriented layout
• Includes star ratings, tagging and 6 125x125 box ad spaces

Download CSS Gallery Theme here

A simple yet effective 2-column Wordpress theme. Try the demo, here.

• AJAX box on upper right sifts through various default Wordpress features.
• Requires various (helpful) plugins, like Get Recent Comments, Popularity Contest, Most Commented Posts and more - which keep your site looking fresh
• Adds a new section in the admin panel under "Presentation" for easy modification of the theme!

Download Forte Theme here

This brand new theme features a clean magazine style format with a few noteworthy options. Check out a demo, here.

• Has dropdown navigation
• Multiple ad spots for Adsense or affiliate box ads
• Multiple page & post templates
• Footer-based backlinks to the designer are a requirement, there appears to be no donation option to remove them.

Download Gabfire Theme here

• Designed to turn Wordpress into a game review site
• 3-column layout
• Built-in multi level drop-down menus
• Plenty of ad box placement opportunities

Download Gamezine Theme here

A beautiful theme that shouldn't be free (but I'm not complaining) - Hamasaki has an amazing front page layout where everything just seems to fit perfectly. Lots of space for articles AND ads make it both attractive and effective. There's even a perfect spot set out for a skyscraper ad on the right side - nice.

• Widget ready
• 125x125 and 120x600 ad ready
• Page comment templates
• Uses custom images for posts
• CAPTCHA support

Download Hamasaki Theme here

• 3-column layout
• Supports Gravatar, Flickr RSS & Pagenavi
• Widget ready version also available

Download Illacrimo Theme here

• A gallery theme with a soft, vector-fashioned look and feel
• Widget ready & able to perform a "mash-up" of RSS and other inclusions
• Designed to be a gallery - not ideal when used as a blog or magazine site

Download Infinity WP Theme here

• Looks like a Mac interface, very clean.
• Customize the side bar via drag & drop
• Requires a footer linkback (might annoy some people).

Download iTheme Blog Theme here

• 2 columns, with featured & regular posts
• Includes a jQuery widgetized "slider" in the footer!
• Comes complete with 8 different color schemes and backgrounds
• Fully customizable through an amazing backend admin panel!

Download Metamorphosis Theme here

• Clean, well-layed out magazine theme
• Easy-to-read text, well done CSS stylesheet
• Showcase your current top articles on the left
• Assign thumbnails to posts
• Overall: extremely neat and organized

Download Mimbo Theme here

• Magazine-style layout
• 3-column home page
• Associate thumbnails with posts
• Asides
• "Featured" posts

Download Morning After Theme here

• Awesomely artistic theme! Tons of eye appeal.
• Strictly a blog theme: use it for your personal website/blog only
• Plain and simple content layout, with recent posts highlighted for your viewers.

Download Notepad Chaos Theme here

A well designed blogger's template for Wordpress. See a demo of it here.

• Compatible with Wordpress 2.2.1+
• Adsense ready

Download Timeless Perceptions Theme here

A clean, organized Web 2.0 blog theme with an attractive header area that puts your most important info (a blurb, links or whatever you want) right in the visitor's prime viewing area. Scroll down for beautifully organized 3-column layout (body area + 2 thin columns on the right) with box ad spaces. See a demo here, although only the front page of the demo seems to work.

• Built-in Flickr & MyBlogLog features
• Makes everything easy for the reader to find

Download WP-Polaroid Theme here

• Includes hover menus & speedy featured article scroll bar
• Right sidebar area gives ample room for Twitter feed, box ads, tag cloud & more
• Comment area includes Gravatar capability

Download Zinmag Theme here

Wordpress has quickly become the most versatile blogging software platform. It's free, you can install it on your own server, and use your own URL. Finding a great Wordpress theme is difficult - I've found the ones from Wordpress' Theme repository to look at little too elementary, and searching for "best wordpress themes" on Google yields a billion results (none of which I truly agreed were the "best" ones, either). I wanted something more professional looking, without having to pay $60+ for a template. So, see below for what I consider the best, most professional, and/or most expendable themes out there right now!

Wordpress.com is the site that hosts a Wordpress blog for you. Pros: Nothing to download, a server account isn't needed. Cons: zero customization, very little expandability. If you're going this route, ignore the rest of this web page, as you won't be able to install themes, anyway! [A tip, however: Use Wordpress.com to register important keyword-entitled pages, and link them to your website!]

Wordpress.org is the site where you can download the Wordpress blog software and run it on your server. You'll have total control over the look and feel of your blog using this method. Pros: 100% design/control over your blog, ability to use a URL for your blog. Cons: You need a hosting account (big deal, they're cheap nowadays!)

Wordpress MU or "Multi User" is a sub-project of Wordpress.org. It's the same exact software, re-structured to allow your visitors to create their own blogs within your blog - turning Wordpress into a massive, unlimited social networking site. Wordpress MU generally uses the same templates and plugins as its regular counterpart, although some plugins have conflicts and must be tested.

Want to hack a Wordpress theme to your liking? Check out Wordpress' Wordpress Template Tag/Wordpress Syntax tutorial.

Customizable: Themes should be customizable to an extent. Unfortunately, some theme authors make it impossible to edit or remove parts of the theme, if you're not a template programmer. Other times, you'll install that favorite theme of yours, go into the admin panel, and see that it barely has any options at all for customization - which will be a disappointment, and a hindrance to the future of your Wordpress blog.

Going With Popular Themes: Don't go with a theme that was made 2 years ago, or is from a site that hasn't been updated since then. Since Wordpress changes with each version, you'll want a theme author who is going to be updating that theme. It would be a tragedy to have an unsupported theme, especially after all of the hard work you'll put into the look and feel of your blog.

Gravatars: They're mini-icons or avatars that your visitors display when they post a comment on your blog. Gravatars are Wordpress-universal and show up on all supported blogs, provided that the user has a free Gravatar account. Even if a theme doesn't have it, you can simply install it yourself, as long as you have beginner's HTML experience.

Load Time: Test out any theme you're planning on going with, not only on the official demo, but on your server. I once went with a beautiful theme that happened to take 30 seconds (sometimes longer!) to load. I had to weed through the support forum to find out that this is an unfortunate side effect due to its programming, and it could not be fixed at present.

Search Engine Friendly Themes: Themes should be devised in a way so that you'll get noticed on Google and other search engines. From what I've read, Google likes blogs that have the editorial on the left (i.e. no left-hand bar), and of course, whatever columns you have to the right are fine. Make sure content isn't trapped within Ajax, Flash, or anything else that will nullify your chances of a search engine reading the content.

Widget-ready: These themes can use sidebar "widgets" - which are selectable, draggable modules that lie on the sidebar of the theme (usually the right-hand side). They include calendars, tag clouds, badges, social bookmark icons and more. This is mainly a feature of convenience as the alternate method is to simply add modules yourself, going forward.

Free Themes vs. Premium (not free) Themes: For a more cost effective solution - see if free Wordpress themes suit your needs. Free Wordpress themes help save money, but may need significant manual tweaks and customization for the best results. Premium themes are not free, because they have a far greater level of design and coding for a more professional look. Typically costing between $50-$100, a Premium theme is a must for a site that you intend to be an "authority site." Remember, looks are usually half the battle when looking to get brand identity and credibility on the internet!

I thought you should know this (if you're a Wordpress newbie...excuse the reiteration!) - do not download or use outdated Wordpress themes, you'll regret it! Unless you're a master coder, you may experience ongoing problems as Wordpress releases updates in the upcoming years, that may show some undesirable results with outdated themes. Be wary of themes whose author's home pages no longer exist, or no longer support their own theme. You do not want to put hard work into a site that is going to get chopped to pieces after upgrading Wordpress in the future! It was worth repeating this warning twice, as it is best to eliminate potential headaches before they happen.

Wordpress updates almost always contain security fixes. Therefore, it is in your best interest to NEVER ignore the "A new update is available" notice in your admin panel. Updating Wordpress is so simple - just drag and drop the new files on top of your existing ones, visit the update link, and you're set.

Never leave un-unpdated plugins to sit dormant in your plugin folder. Un-updated plugins are a massive security risk! Make sure your plugins are compatible by checking this official Wordpress Plugin Compatibility List.

Wordpress Security: Exercise common sense, and be sure to never leave your Wordpress theme files open as security threats. Never CHMOD these files to anything above 644! Be sure to do this after you're done editing your template files.

Password protect the "wp-admin" folder through cPanel, or your whatever other software your server uses. Contact your server admin to find out how to do this, if you don't know. Once complete, you'll have two security layers to get into your Wordpress site. It's a slight inconvenience that gives great peace of mind!

Lastly, be sure to read this awesome guide to securing Wordpress...you'll thank yourself!

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